


The Right Decision

by Arke



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial of Feelings, Destroy Ending, First Kiss, Frottage, Gap Filler, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, Paragade (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:39:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 104,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arke/pseuds/Arke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kaidan had asked for a moment of Shepard’s time at that little café on the Presidium, he had not expected to hear what he wanted, but he had hoped for it.<br/>When Shepard had turned him down, Kaidan had received his answer, and he had enough sense to quit while he was ahead.<br/>Shepard had thought it through.  He had weighed all of his options.  He had made the right decision.<br/>So why does the twinge in the pit of his stomach now feel distinctly like regret?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Decision

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something different here. Mass Effect is all about choice and consequence. Here, Shepard makes a choice that seems like the right one… but life’s about the journey, not the destination, right? Something like that. Y’know.  
>   
> That said, I should also say this now: this is a long, bumpy ride. It’s not a fluffy slow burn. For conflict-averse individuals, please keep that in mind.  
>   
>  **Note on the rating: ******  
> Canon-typical violence throughout.  
>  In terms of adult content, Chapters 15, 20, and 23 are NSFW.  
> Other warnings: strong language and some alcohol abuse.

> _Hey Shepard,_
> 
> _I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a little breather.  Next time we’re on the Citadel, let me buy you dinner.  We should try Apollo’s.  It’s that little restaurant in the courtyard overlooking the Presidium._
> 
> _Kaidan_

No matter how many times he reread the message, it granted him nothing.

It was vague, artfully crafted to avoid planting presumptions in his head, and it was impersonal, detached to the point where it seemed less a conversation starter and more a humble request for a sliver of the commander’s limited time, promising an explanation only upon his approval of that request. 

When serving aboard the original _Normandy_ , Kaidan required some persuasion to speak his mind, but that was three years ago.  He had slowly – and cautiously, he would be the first to admit – come around again after Horizon, after Mars, and after the attempted coup on the Citadel, but why he would not simply speak directly to Shepard even now seemed to negate any progress they had made in salvaging their relationship as brothers in arms.

For a simple friendly gesture, it was obviously hiding something.

As the elevator descended past floor after floor toward the Presidium Commons, Shepard reread the message for the umpteenth time on his omni-tool.  Kaidan was a good man, a good soldier, a colleague and friend.  He only hoped that whatever persistent thought had spawned this message would not change that.

Kaidan waited in silence at Apollo’s Café, glancing through the menu with no real thought behind what his eyes vaguely recognized as words.  His mind was entirely elsewhere.

It had taken all the courage he could muster to send a message to the commander.  He had rewritten and reread it at least a dozen times before he finally held his breath and sent it, only to then immediately feel a pang of regret hit him, as though he knew he should have made the effort for a thirteenth draft, as though he knew Shepard might misconstrue such simple words.  Dealing with shady politicians and shifty mercenaries on a near-daily basis was likely to blame for that.

Even between missions, Shepard’s brow was furrowed and his eyes were fixed on something far away, planning and calculating and determined to a fault.  The man never relaxed, possibly because he did not know how.  He was constantly weighing his options, evaluating strategies, and making decisions, both tiny and huge, everything from the most insignificant choices of his every day to the grandest ones that would shape the fate of the galaxy.

In the rush of the fight, he was fully present, engaged and focused and driven by the mission, but on his off hours, he was distant, lightyears away, mentally darting about the stars and planets with only his next goal in mind.  It was a trait uniquely him, and one that tended to make him seem a little rough around the edges.

Reserved?  Perhaps.  Callous?  On occasion.

In the midst of war, the galaxy entrusted him with its fate, ensuring that his every decision was under relentless scrutiny, and yet such a heavy burden had never broken him as a man, never compromised his judgment, never severed his personal promise to duty and soul – not that he had ever outwardly displayed, in any case.  He powered through his own exhaustion like a one-man war machine.

But he had never lost his humanity.  He was a leader, but he was a human being.  He had faults, he had odd habits, he had hidden reservations and unfounded biases and strong opinions.  He listened to his crew, he shouldered their burdens together with his own, and he never put himself above them.  He was an imperfect amalgam of humanity’s diverse traits, but it was a combination that demonstrated commitment and commanded respect.  And Kaidan could not have asked for a better commander and friend.

Shepard was a soldier: he had no biotic abilities, no particular tech skills – but he was a good shot, probably one of the best, and he always committed to his mission with his sights perfectly set.

And when Kaidan saw Shepard approaching the table at the café, he braced himself for his own mission with the same determination.  He picked up the menu and began to scroll through it, pleasantly amazed at what he found once he actually began reading in earnest.

“Surprised this place can still get supplies for a menu like this.”

When Shepard took a seat beside him, Kaidan set the menu aside.  Shepard fidgeted a few times, rested his hands on his thighs, and replied, “Maybe it’s better if we don’t ask how… or where.”

Kaidan folded his arms atop the table and leaned forward, looking away at some unknown subject, as though lost in the moment and yet perfectly content with it.  “I’m glad we’re taking the time to do this,” he said.  “I could use a sanity check.”

Shepard eyed him for a moment. 

 _That’s it?_ he thought.

“Things have been pretty crazy,” he said instead.

Then Kaidan looked at him, expression tainted by that subtle light in his eye that had always belied his attempts to hide his deepest thoughts, and Shepard swallowed hard.  Kaidan was always overthinking things; while observant and astute in his own way, his tendency to overanalyze usually culminated in nothing but worries – obligations that Shepard must deal with outside the mission – and time was sorely lacking these days.

“You know, my life flashed in front of my eyes on Mars,” Kaidan said, his gaze finally falling away at the last word. 

Mars was a painful memory about which he had already taken too much time to think.  He had thought about it after waking in Huerta Memorial Hospital.  He had thought about it when he stared down Shepard over the barrel of a gun.  He had thought about it in his quiet hours alone in the Starboard Observation lounge.  But here, seated on the Presidium with his commander and friend in some semblance of peace – whether it was an illusion or not – was where he could finally speak.  He again lifted his eyes to meet Shepard’s before he continued.

“And there weren’t enough moments like this… with people I care about.”

Shepard tilted his head slightly.  _Ah._

“How are you feeling these days?” he asked, gesturing vaguely in Kaidan’s direction.

“Feeling up to whatever the Reapers throw at me,” Kaidan answered.  A smile finally reached his lips.  “And grateful that I convinced you to sit down for half a second and relax.”

“Let’s talk.”  Shepard folded his arms on the tabletop.  “What are you drinking?”

Kaidan chuckled, that breathy half-laugh that always managed to reveal his nervousness whenever it slipped out. 

“If you’re trying to butter me up, it might take a nice steak sandwich, too.”  He said it with a smile, but Shepard was not so easily convinced.

He leaned back in his chair and picked up the discarded menu.  _How like you, Kaidan._

“So…”

“Shot of whiskey and a good old Canadian lager,” Kaidan said.  “Think they have it?”

Shepard scanned through the menu.  “More likely to have batarian shard wine,” he said, one eyebrow arching.

“At my parents’ place in Vancouver,” Kaidan began again, a subtle hint of nostalgia in his smile, “drank more than a few beers on their balcony, looking over English Bay.” 

Kaidan looked away, gazing out over the artificial landscape of the Presidium.  There was no war here.  There was no death or destruction or uncertainty: life on the Citadel flowed per its routine, willfully ignorant of the war raging outside its own gravitational pull.  Here, even if only under pretense, he could believe that peace was possible, and that Earth might achieve it once more.  And perhaps he would, too. 

“Yeah, beautiful view.”

He turned his attention back to Shepard, who now watched him curiously. 

“You know what, though?” Kaidan continued, a new hopeful lilt to the tone of his voice.  “I feel good about our chances.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  Lets me sleep better at night.”

Shepard’s brow knitted.  _I knew it, god damn it.  He’s obviously worried about something.  He’s going to make me drag it out of him.  That’s what this is about.  We should be past this—_

“You’re not sleeping, Kaidan?” he asked, the only question that remained once he had mentally shoved aside all the snippets of disparate thoughts.

“Maybe a little restless.”  Kaidan again looked away, but he could feel Shepard’s eyes on him.  “It’s… it’s just—” he started, but when his words faltered he let out a frustrated sigh instead.

Shepard watched in silence.   _Come on, Kaidan.  You’re stuttering like some FNG trying to ask directions to the bathroom.  You should’ve already known you could talk to me at any time.  Why so hesitant now?  What’s so hard to get off your chest?  Tell me._

A final catch in his throat gave Kaidan the brief moment of pause he needed to finish formulating his thought. 

“It’s just—” he began, hesitating for one more moment as he waited for his lips to catch up with his mind, “you plan a career, you focus, and then suddenly the world’s ending and it’s too late to, uh…” 

A third moment of uncertainty settled between them, and Kaidan mentally kicked himself for it.  But there was no turning back now. 

“…To find someone.”

That was unexpected.

“Someone?” Shepard prompted.

Kaidan looked at him again, steadying himself as he finally let it all out: “Yeah.  Someone.  Someone strong and confident.  Someone I admire and respect and enjoy being with.  Someone handsome.  Tall order, I know, but I don’t really have to look far.”

_Oh, shit._

But Kaidan kept talking.  “We’ve been friends a long time, Shepard.  Have you ever known me to be with anyone?  I guess I’m just choosy, or patient, or… I don’t know.  Maybe what I’ve never found – what I want – is something deeper with someone that I already care about.”

_Kaidan—_

And when Kaidan heaved a sigh, it was like a punch to the gut. 

“That’s what I want,” he said, staring at the tabletop.

The silence that had fallen between them was the very one he feared when he had composed that message, and he looked up only when it began to grate on his ears.

“What do you want?”

Shepard did not realize he had been staring until his eyes felt irritated.  He tried to wait out the question, but it festered in air between them.  He granted himself a moment to blink away his stare and actually see Kaidan.

Kaidan, who always upheld his own principles.  Kaidan, who always followed regulations and kept his loyalties where he knew they would do the most good.  Kaidan, who never let questions compromise his sense of integrity.  Kaidan, who had leveled a gun at him a week ago out of unflinching duty to what he believed was right.

But the war had thrust so many questions upon him.  He had mistrusted Shepard’s motivations when he should have heard him out.  He had been hospitalized at the hands of a new Cerberus synthetic.  He had unwittingly become a pawn of Udina’s ambitions.  For all the hell they had been through together, he should have known that Shepard trusted him despite everything.

And now Kaidan was asking for something that he should have known Shepard could not provide.  Shepard could hardly believe it himself.  He had to be sure.

“You and me?  Is that what you’re saying, Kaidan?”

“It feels right, doesn’t it?”

The swell of hope on Kaidan’s face made it difficult to look him in the eye, and Shepard swallowed his initial thought before he might have actually vocalized it.

_I knew he would come around after the coup attempt, but this…_

Kaidan had shown insecurity about being forced to shoot Udina.  He had needed to be reassured about his own integrity.  He had not known what to think of the ex-Cerberus scientists they had saved from Gellix.  He had confessed to every troubling thought of his family on Earth and elsewhere.

_He’s not thinking clearly.  He just wants to know something with certainty for once._

With that, Shepard made his decision.  He folded his arms atop the table, leaning forward and tilting his head, peering up at Kaidan through half-lidded eyes that wished they could have conveyed everything through their silence – but what Kaidan needed now were words.  Direct, firm words that would ground him in reality.

“I’m sorry, Kaidan.”

He watched the corner of Kaidan’s mouth quirk in response, as though that cautious optimism had burned brighter for a split-second, like a candle’s flame swelling in its final moments before dissipating.

“I’m flattered, but we should just keep it professional.”

That quirk of the lips faded completely. 

“Oh… okay.”  Kaidan then forced his smile to return to its post, to hold the line in spite of every rampant thought besetting it.  “That’s— that’s fine.”

For all his control and determination, each a characteristic that Shepard had always respected, Kaidan struggled to hold down his discomfort at the thickness of the air, but even then, he looked away for only a brief moment to calm his nerves, smiled through it, and finally turned back toward Shepard when he was reasonably confident that he would not grow too sick to do so.  He straightened his posture, keeping his hands neatly folded on the tabletop, and willed his voice into stability despite every thought that lingered on the tip of his tongue.

He took it like he should have – braced for impact, as was standard procedure in encounters such as this – but it left him shaken just the same.  There was no way to retrace his steps or retract his words now, so Kaidan settled against the chair and decided that he should at least be grateful that Shepard had not been harsh.

Shepard’s gaze was fixed on him, seeking some refuge from the dull ache in the pit of his stomach, knowing that he would not find it in Kaidan’s eyes but still watching him shift uncomfortably a few times and again settle against the back of the chair, as though his every move was the subtle change of subject that he needed. 

Shepard had faced down Reapers and their indoctrinated servants, witnessed firsthand the destruction they wreathed upon planets and colonies and individual lives alike, and powered through them all, gun drawn and sights set.  He had faced death and ruin and hopelessness and every nuance in between, and he had embarked on every mission with fierce determination, all while somehow keeping his sanity intact.  So why did the devastation in Kaidan’s eyes now make his stomach churn?

_Damn it, Kaidan… don’t look at me like that._

“I’m sorry,” he said again.  It was all he could do now.

Kaidan shook his head and lifted a hand in a simple gesture.  “Yeah, no— really, I understand,” he said.  “Just let me say something, then.”

Shepard waited for it, wincing through the growing twinge low in his gut.

The expression on Kaidan’s face was firm, finally certain of everything he should say.  “I just want you to know that I consider you a friend, okay?  A good one.”  And then he faltered.  “And, uh… I hope you think of me as a friend, too.”

“That I do, Kaidan,” Shepard replied.  “We’ve been through a hell of a lot.”

“Good.  That’s all I want.”

“Good.”

_Good.  Hopefully that means this will be the end of it._

And Kaidan was a man of his word.  He kept their conversation restricted, confining it to the subject of work, and paid for dinner as he had said he would.  He took only one shot of whiskey after deciding that he should avoid even the remotest possibility of getting drunk enough to say anything else he might regret, but then midway through his meal he determined that he could not have had too many more confessions remaining after what he had already said when he spilled his heart out all over the table.  He was a good two-thirds into his second beer when he saw his next opportunity.

“Hackett contacted me,” Shepard said.  “Said we need a large fleet and the quarians are willing to talk, so we’ve got our next heading.”

“Great,” Kaidan replied, setting aside the unfinished bottle.  “Guess that means we’ll be shoving off soon.” 

The conversation had pressed on to the point where neither one of them had truly said anything, and when Kaidan saw the chance to end it, he seized it with a firm grasp.  He needed to go.  He needed to leave the dismissal behind there on the Citadel.  Perhaps then he would actually feel like Shepard’s friend again and not like some teenager reacting to his first rejection.

Kaidan had put on a brave face, had taken it in stride like any soldier should have done.  He had asked for the opportunity, and he had received it; and now that it had flitted past him, he had little reason to stay at that little café on the Presidium.  In an hour’s time, Shepard would take his post at the galaxy map in the middle of the CIC and the _Normandy_ would leave her dock and head back out into the fray.  And then this tiny incident would be a distant memory, with a galaxy’s worth of empty space between Kaidan’s confession and Shepard’s apology.

So he stood up.

“I’ll, uh… see you back on the _Normandy_ ,” he said.

“Sure,” was Shepard’s only response.

Shepard watched him go.  He watched him scale the staircase with that hasty pace.  He watched him disappear around the corner.  But the air was still so thick, as though Kaidan had never left, and Shepard leaned forward in his chair and dug the heels of his boots into the floor.

He had thought it through.  He had evaluated every alternative.  He had made the right decision.  And still the coiling ache in the pit of his stomach felt distinctly like regret.


	2. Space

Staring into the vast emptiness of space from behind a window had a taint of claustrophobia that Kaidan could not quite describe.

There were stars, there were comets, there were endless worlds and life and any number of phenomena that he would never see from the confines of the _Normandy_ , a single frigate darting about from mission to mission in the midst of all that empty space.  Not that it was inherently a disappointment to be bound to the ship between missions, but, despite allowing his mind to wander into the dark areas of space, they were so impossibly infinite outside the familiar company of the _Normandy_ that it offered little consolation.

Perhaps the _Normandy_ felt confining in comparison to the blackness of space just outside of her hull, but there was nowhere else he would have rather been.  He only wished that he would have the opportunity to do what he wanted: fight back against everything that had torn the galaxy asunder.

While en route to the Far Rim, Shepard had determined to take a slight detour to the Nimbus Cluster – not that he would have called it a detour, as it was only a few mass relay jumps off the _Normandy’s_ stated course.  It had been an order issued to the bridge from the confines of his cabin.  He had not left his cabin since the _Normandy_ departed from her dock at the Citadel.

Kaidan had learned little of the mission beforehand.  All he knew was that it stemmed from a request from Liara, who had relayed it from asari high command personally, and if that did not utterly reek of something unknowably dangerous at play, nothing did.  But he had braced himself for it just the same, ready to take on whatever unknowns the galaxy had to offer—

Only to learn secondhand that Shepard had taken Garrus and James with him to Lesuss instead.

So he stood there in the Starboard Observation lounge, watching the stars shine against the great black canvas of space, letting his mind wander into the huge spaces between them.

He could understand why Shepard’s off hours were always spent mentally scouring the stars, but why he would limit himself to the next mission in a galaxy so massive remained a mystery.

The ground team returned from Lesuss carrying as few words as possible.  Garrus returned to the main battery and Shepard took the lift straight to his cabin and stayed there.  Rather than loiter in the shuttle bay as per usual, though, James made his way to the mess, which caught Kaidan by surprise when he made his own venture out of his comfort zone to find a protein bar.

He saw James in the small kitchen, where he was hovering over a pan already heating on the induction stove.  It was mildly surprising that James had not heard him approach – perhaps he was focused elsewhere.

So he folded his arms, leaned against the counter, and spoke up.

“Lieutenant.”

James looked over his shoulder at him.  “Hey, how’s it going?”

Kaidan shrugged.  “It’s going.”

James turned his attention back to the pan, one hand suspended high above it to gauge temperature.  “You feelin’ down today?” he asked.

“Not really,” Kaidan answered, finally uncrossing his arms.  “Just a bit restless, I guess.”

“You going stir crazy, Major?”

Kaidan hesitated on that question.  “I’m not sure that’s the right phrase for it, but, actually… maybe it is.”

James glanced at him, but his gaze was soon lost again.  “Hey, well, sometimes hanging around the ship can be a nice little breather in itself.”

“Yeah?  I take it the mission on Lesuss didn’t go as planned?”

“No, not that.  ‘Mission accomplished’ and all that.”  James’ hand lowered to his side, and even his profile appeared to be lost in thought.  “But it sure was a different experience.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, after what I saw down there, I decided I could really go for something familiar,” James said, shrugging his shoulders with somewhat more stiffness than he would have liked.  “Got the recipe for my _abuela’s huevos rancheros_.  You want some?”

Kaidan chanced a glance at the three eggs resting on the counter, not that he wanted to take a guess at what kind of eggs they were.  Perhaps it was better that he remained blissfully unaware. 

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

James cracked the first egg and unceremoniously tossed the shell into the trash.  “It’s amazing when you think about it,” he said.  “Everything out there in the galaxy, I mean.  Those mutated Ardat-Yakshi asari?  That’s the kind of shit you’d only imagine in nightmares, you know?  And then the bomb, and—”

“Bomb?” Kaidan interjected.

“Yeah,” James said, granting him a sideways glance as he reached for another egg.  “Heard some commandos were supposed to blow the place.  We set it off, got the job done.”  He cracked the second egg over the edge of the pan, tossed the shell, and looked away.  “Cost a life in the process.”

Kaidan turned against the counter, allowing the edge to dig into the small of his back as he rested against it.  “So, the mission…” he began, but his words soon gave way to silence.

He thought of Saren’s base in the deepest recesses of space.  He thought of Ashley.  He thought of Shepard carrying him to the safety of the _Normandy’s_ cargo bay rather than her, and suddenly every idle thought seemed so disrespectful – knowing what she fought for, what she lived for, what she died for – when he should have been out there, bringing the fight to the stars themselves and making her proud.

“I guess I just hadn’t known what to expect,” James said, and Kaidan looked up at him.

“The Reapers are truly ruthless,” he replied, the seething sort of inflection in his voice surprising even himself.

“They’re ruthlessly fucking everything up,” came James’ response. 

He turned on his heel to face Kaidan directly, catching him off guard, but it was evident all over his face: the determination, the genuine anger, the sincerity that Kaidan had never before seen cross his features. 

“They make monsters out of individual people and destroy entire worlds.  Even in my nightmares I would never have imagined the sort of shit I saw down there, and everywhere else, too.  When I saw those Reaper things attacking Earth, I just wanted to fight back.  And I probably would have, if we hadn’t gone to the _Normandy_.”

Kaidan stepped away from the counter and rummaged through one of the cabinets until he found a protein bar.  “We did what we had to,” he said.

“I get that,” James replied, and he turned away to face the stove, perhaps a tiny act of defiance to such a simple response.  “But Shepard made me realize something—”

“Shepard?”

“Yeah.  We had a little chat after Mars.”  He said it with a grin on his face, as though it were a fond memory, and Kaidan found himself staring.  He shifted uncomfortably on his feet when James continued, “Made me realize that Earth wasn’t where I’d be most useful.  It took a while for it to sink in, but it makes sense now.  At first, I thought he was crazy, dragging us away from Earth like that.  But now I’ve seen him at work.  He’s _loco_ sometimes, but he’s _loco_ for a reason.” 

He finally looked up at Kaidan again, this time with a sheepish smirk.

“He’s got a good reason for every decision he makes.  I gotta’ trust him to make the right choices.  Just don’t tell him I said that.”

Kaidan turned his attention to the protein bar.  His hands worked diligently at unwrapping it while his mind wandered into its own darkest regions, only to regain enough awareness to respond with another simple platitude.

“Not a problem.”

“Thanks.  Don’t want to make him think I’ve gone soft.  We can’t afford to be soft for this fight.  We're all with him one hundred percent, right? We've got to be.”

“…Um, yeah.”

This time, Kaidan let the silence grow.  The sizzle of cooking eggs, the crunch of the protein bar between his teeth, and the dull ambient hum of the _Normandy’s_ interior could not penetrate the silence.  Even knowing what horrors the Reapers were inflicting upon the galaxy failed to whittle down his resolve: he wanted to be out there, fighting alongside his team – alongside Shepard – but now he could not help but feel that his determination was misplaced.

He trusted Shepard to make the right decisions, too.  That was the problem.

With no notion of how much time passed in that silence, Kaidan afforded James an artless nod and left.

By the time Shepard made his rounds after the mission, as was his personal routine, Kaidan had retreated back into the Starboard Observation lounge, relegating himself to a place on one of the central couches from which most of his field of vision had become the stars outside.

“Kaidan.”

He looked up to find Shepard standing some feet away in the walkway between the two couches. 

“Hey, Shepard,” he said, turning his attention back to the window.

Shepard folded his arms as he stood there, awaiting words that never came.

“You doing okay?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, leaning forward and resting his forearms over his thighs.  His hands clasped together between his knees, and he finally looked up, his face stoic, as though he truly had nothing to say, his eyes on Shepard but his mind elsewhere.  After a quick breath’s worth of hesitation, he added, “It’s been pretty quiet around here.”

Shepard chuckled at that.  “I wish I could say the same.”

“Hm.”

It was either a mumble of agreement or a murmur of disapproval – Shepard could not tell.

“James told me about the Ardat-Yakshi,” Kaidan said.  “Sounds like it was nightmare material.”

“Something like that,” Shepard replied.

Shepard sighed, as though he were reluctant to discuss the mission, and Kaidan finally returned his gaze to the window, granting him whatever time and space he needed.  But Kaidan had already sat there in silence for a long while, mulling over details he had never seen, evaluating alternatives he had never known.  He just wanted back in the fight – yet, Shepard had not even considered him, and he had a sneaking suspicion as to why.

Kaidan stood up and turned his back to the window, facing Shepard directly, folding his arms and meeting his gaze with the sort of stoic control that he had slowly rebuilt since leaving the Citadel.  If Shepard needed to know that he was the same old soldier, that whatever nuance of awkwardness lingered in the air between them would not affect his judgment, then he would ensure that Shepard knew it with absolute certainty.

“Mutating Ardat-Yakshi into monsters…  Hate to say so, but it’s a brilliant strategy – turning a species against itself, I mean.  Ingenious, when you think about it.  Ruthless.  Ingenious and ruthless.”

“You were expecting anything less?” Shepard replied.

“No,” Kaidan said.  “I’ve followed you for a long time, Shepard.  I know what kind of enemy we’re up against.”

Shepard felt his shoulders relax, if only slightly.  He did not need to hear the spiel; he already knew. 

Kaidan was still a good soldier.  It was a trait he could respect, and, in fact, a trait he had always respected.  He had seen it in their earliest days together on the _Normandy SR-1_ , and on Mars he had seen just how much more resourceful and clever Kaidan had become.  That, combined with his biotic abilities, his tech skills, and his good aim made him a formidable opponent for any Reaper abomination or Cerberus grunt.  And Shepard was not about to surrender that because of some passing feeling on Kaidan’s part.

Kaidan wanted back in the fight, and Shepard decided to take him up on the offer.

_Next time, Kaidan.  I promise._

“The commandos already had a plan for that place,” Shepard said.  “We just finished the job.”

“Sounds like that bomb was good luck, then… or something like that.”  An unsettled expression crept over Kaidan’s features.  “I mean, I get it, it’s all part of the plan, but sometimes I wish you’d be more careful.”

_And there’s the downside._

But he did recognize that Kaidan had always been that way.  It was part of him, as a man, as a soldier, as a human being – and it was part of why they worked so well together, always having each other’s backs, always knowing that dedication and strength meshed together in one brilliant package.  Despite every harsh word on Horizon and every suspicious glance on Mars, they had remained friends, bound together by war and… something more.

He knew Kaidan would go out of his way for him.  Before Kaidan had ever confessed to any feeling, fleeting or otherwise, he voiced his concerns about Shepard’s safety and sanity.

 _But_ when _did this become something more?_

Kaidan had apologized for Horizon, where he had lashed out at Shepard’s apparent abandonment of his duty to the Alliance.  He had expressed his gratitude to Shepard for saving his life on Mars.  These were actions that should have been expected of them as soldiers: without knowing details, Kaidan was right to be suspicious of him on Horizon, despite his unwillingness to listen for the details themselves; and he should have known that Shepard would not have abandoned him on Mars, not when they had come so far after so long and in spite of every guarded glance he had levied at him.

Kaidan had made everything so personal.  His shame for his own words on Horizon had subdued his efforts to now question Shepard’s decisions.  His gratitude for Shepard’s actions on Mars had rendered him opposed to the idea of doubt or suspicion.  He should have let them be as duty and nothing more.

So Shepard pressed the matter further.

“You worried I might get myself killed?  Have a little faith, Kaidan.”

“I do have faith in you, Shepard.”

“Good to know.”

Kaidan’s gaze was fixed, his features were set, and his voice was resolute and determined.  “And you know that I’m with you one hundred percent, no matter what,” he said, but he could not hide how the shine of his eyes dulled as he spoke.

Shepard held down the grimace that peeked out from the corners of his lips.  “Yeah, I know.”

Shepard did not need blind faith – and he did not want it, not from Kaidan, that voice of reason that had hovered over his shoulder since Therum, since Feros, since Noveria.  Kaidan had slipped, letting a concern about Shepard’s methods slide past his mental filter, but he fought it tooth and nail, striving for normality in something so mundane as a conversation with his commanding officer.

_Understandable, but how unlike you, Kaidan._

This – this pretense that nothing had happened – was exactly what Shepard had hoped for after hearing Kaidan’s confession at Apollo’s.  But when he could face it directly, it was entirely foreign, impossible to believe that it was still Kaidan buried beneath that good soldier act: as though Kaidan were not still overthinking his every word, as though he were not still scrutinizing his every thought to ensure that it kept his uncertainties hidden.

For a moment, Shepard wondered if Kaidan was merely pushing his buttons, but he did not believe that, and he decided to label it _professionalism_.

Why Shepard himself failed to show professionalism at this stage was another matter: he should have been content with the strive for normality.  He should have wanted Kaidan to forget everything and act as though nothing had happened.  He should have been grateful that Kaidan was strong enough to withstand the blow of rejection and still fight for something so much larger than himself.

And yet, he felt the need to fill the empty space between them, to break the act for what it was.

“I know I can count on you to have my back, although apparently you might prefer my front.”

“…That was uncalled for, Shepard.”

The expression on Kaidan’s face, the deepening lines at the corners of his eyes, the dejected twitch of his lip, revealed every subtle hint of pain that his words strove so valiantly to avoid.

And Shepard twitched when he saw it, as well.

“I— sorry,” Shepard muttered, his head tilting down slightly.

Kaidan allowed himself a deep inhale, like he needed to breathe in that apology.  “Listen, I know what I said, and it must seem…”  His thought trailed off, and he let it go without a fight.

Dredging up the past, however recent the event had been, would accomplish nothing right now.  It did nothing on Horizon.  It did nothing on Mars.  It would do nothing here. 

He framed his next thought with that good soldier in mind: “With all due respect, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say things like that.”

Shepard hesitated, watching the subtle changes upon Kaidan’s face as the major mentally debated himself, and he questioned his own actions – and he despised himself for it.  Perhaps a teasing comment had been uncalled for, but it was not intended to offend; it was supposed to bring him back to reality, to lower his guard, to cast aside the pretense, to let himself recognize that the façade was not him.

_You want to be good friends, and yet you’re so tight-lipped now, like when we barely knew each other.  I shouldn’t have to tell you to ‘loosen up.’  Not anymore._

But Kaidan still needed to hear words, or that look upon his face would never fade.

“Yeah, no problem.”

And still that persistent defeated look in Kaidan’s eyes, the same one he had shown at that café on the Presidium, wordlessly pleaded with Shepard to let his controlled stoicism be his strength now.  The unsettled twinge in the pit of Shepard’s stomach returned, slowly at first, until it became a dull ache, a constant pain that defied explanation.

_Why?_

Then he thought through it.  He had dragged Falere away from the bomb in the monastery’s great hall some hours ago.  He had dragged James away from Earth some weeks ago.  He had dragged Kaidan away from Virmire some years ago.  He dragged people away from their losing battles, letting them fight him along the way, but in every situation, he knew that he was right: he had to be certain, he had to act, he had to make the decisions that seemed so impetuous to others but which weighed upon his shoulders more than anyone else would ever know.  And they inevitably thanked him later for it.

No, he had been right.  This was for Kaidan’s own good.

_You’ll thank me later, too, Kaidan._

Kaidan turned partway on his heel, glancing out through the window and into the stars for only a brief moment of silence before refocusing on Shepard, who stood there with his arms folded, his face stoic, his eyes set in their sights as they always had been.  Kaidan lowered his head, his gaze falling somewhere between Shepard’s boot and the edge of the couch, and swallowed hard, waiting for Shepard to go, to leave him behind – but he never did.

The space between them was indescribably confining.

“Uh…” he drawled, finally lifting his eyes to meet Shepard’s, “is there anything else you need?”

“No,” Shepard replied, allowing himself to finally look away, only to focus on the dull ache in his gut.  “We’ll talk later.”

Kaidan looked away, too.  That small contortion in Shepard’s expression was impossible to read, and he could only stand it for so long.

“Yeah,” he said as he turned away completely.

He watched the stars in the distance, he listened to the pneumatic hiss of the door behind him, and he sighed into the silence that again descended upon the room.  Perhaps he would find Shepard there, darting about the dark regions of space, focused on the mission and nothing else – or perhaps he might actually find something more certain.

And he hoped for the latter.


	3. Loyalty

_Everybody wants something._

The quarian admirals admitted to initiating an open war with the geth.  After they had driven the geth back to the quarian home system of Tikkun, a Reaper command signal had begun broadcasting to all geth ships and had made them significantly more effective, and now the admirals requested that Shepard assist with disabling a signal coming from the geth dreadnought orbiting Rannoch before they would commit any resources to his cause.

The _Normandy’s_ stealth drive would allow a small team to board the dreadnought undetected – the admirals could all agree on that – but they continued to bicker amongst themselves about how they should handle the geth threat after that.  Once they had Shepard’s promise on the only matter for which they needed him at the moment, they descended into arguments that subverted any faith Shepard had in their commitment at all.

The only portion of the conference that was not pure frustration was seeing Tali again.

She knew how ridiculous the admiralty board’s internal conflicts were, and she knew that being an admiral herself meant that she had to put on a display of certainty and agreement so as to avoid dividing the quarian Fleet.  Shepard could respect that: it came with the territory of being a leader, being under constant scrutiny, facing the dregs of command, remaining detached to the point where the mission became the sole focus, whether that sort of authority and the crushing weight of expectation was desired or not.

But even she said, “If you can help us, we’ll hit the Reapers with everything we’ve got.”

_Fucking ‘if.’_

Shepard left the war room behind, left the admirals behind, left Tali behind, and hated how easy it was to do so.

Tali watched him go.  She returned to the console at which she had been working in the war room to find that the incessantly flashing lights, the occasional beep underscored by a constant low hum, and the hushed voices of crewmen talking amongst themselves made it less and less appealing by the minute.  The admirals’ arguments lingered in the air long after they had disembarked from the _Normandy_ , overpowering every subtle ambient sound in the war room, and she left the console behind, relishing in how easy it was to do so.

She made her way to the Crew Deck, ignoring the odd looks from unfamiliar crewmembers and treasuring the delighted ones she received from others.  Liara, Garrus, Dr. Chakwas – Shepard had always had a magnetic pull, and seeing them again was the only proof she needed to know that all of them trusted him to make the tough calls, to have the calculated certainty that they needed, to do the right thing even in the midst of this insane war.

While Tali patrolled the ship again like it was brand new, Kaidan paced the deck in the Starboard Observation lounge, trudging through the quiet stillness that had barely been breached by the buzz of the quarian admirals’ visit.  Word spread quickly through the _Normandy_ , and in the dim room, backlit by the faintest hint of stars, words were all he had.

When he heard the pneumatic hiss of the door, he looked up and was surprised to find a visitor other than the one he halfheartedly expected.

“Good to see you again, Kaidan.”

“You too, Tali.”

Even through the obscuring shine of her visor, Tali appeared excited, her eyes lit with the sort of piqued interest that Kaidan had always enjoyed in her company.  When they served aboard the original _Normandy_ together, he knew little of quarians, but it took little time to develop respect for her technical expertise and combat skills.  The way her voice lilted when they compared omni-tool models and pistol mods had never failed to bring a smile to his face.

“I never thought I’d be back on the _Normandy_ ,” she said.  “For such a small frigate, it still feels empty compared to the Flotilla’s civilian ships.”

Kaidan gestured toward one of the couches, and Tali took a seat, crossing one leg over the other and resting her hands in her lap.

“We’ve been making do with a skeleton crew,” he said as he took a seat beside her.

Tali made an odd sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.  “Would it be rude of me to say that I’m glad to see that the _Normandy’s_ rid of Cerberus?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then I’m glad to see that the _Normandy’s_ rid of Cerberus.”

Kaidan felt his shoulders stiffen.  He knew little of Shepard’s time spent serving under Cerberus’ banner, and he preferred not to think of it – the diamond logo that preceded him, the cybernetic scars that had not quite healed before his mission to Horizon, the way they glared at one another in the midst of that desolate colony because of those ties – but he did know of the familiar faces that had joined Shepard’s mission against the Collectors.  He had seen Garrus for himself on Horizon, and he had heard secondhand about Tali’s recruitment.

“Cerberus didn’t treat you well?”  It was meant to be lighthearted, but he cringed after he heard it out loud.

Tali glanced at him.  “I joined for Shepard’s sake,” she said.  “Not theirs.”

Kaidan felt his fingers reflexively curling into the fabric of his uniform.  “Yeah.”

Perhaps that loyalty was what Shepard had needed during his time with Cerberus: faces he could trust amidst the callous uncertainty that refused to follow his plans and calculations.  Not that loyalty was free in every situation, but Shepard had built a crew and taken on an impossible mission without him.  And for all of Shepard’s defiance of the uncertain, he had survived to take on the galaxy’s next threat with the fierce determination that made him such a commanding presence – and a respectable one.

But it wore him down, as well, baring his scars and his frustrations at odd moments.  Kaidan wanted to take on some of those burdens, to relieve him of his exhaustion, to be the colleague and friend that he always should have been: loyal and devoted and trusting.  Perhaps then Shepard would have trusted him with the fight.

He stared at his hands.  He did not want to overthink this.

“So, what have you been up to since then, Tali?”

“Working with the Flotilla,” she replied.  “Being an admiral was never really my intention, but it sure keeps me busy.”

Kaidan turned partway toward her.  “An admiral?”

“It’s more of a formality at this point,” she said, her hands twisting over themselves in one another’s hold, a nervous tic that she had never managed to leave behind in her days as a young girl on her pilgrimage.

“I’m sure you’re doing great.”

“Well, if nothing else, it gives me a chance to push back against some of the other admirals’ bad ideas.”  She shook her head lightly, recalling a moment of uncertainty that seemed so foolish now.  “It’s funny… I really had to think about whether I should accept the position or not.”

“It’s a major decision,” Kaidan said.  “Makes sense that you’d have to think it through.”

“Right.”  She turned her head to look him in the eye.  “I asked myself what Shepard would do in this situation, and then I knew.  He would take the chance to make things better.  He would do the right thing.”

Kaidan shifted in his seat, glancing away for only a moment before refocusing on her.  “And are the other admirals on board?”

“Raan is,” Tali replied.  “The others returned to the Flotilla.  They’ve asked Shepard for help with disabling a geth dreadnought.”

He hesitated, brow knitting and eyes narrowing.  “Geth?”

“The Flotilla is in an all-out war with the geth now,” Tali said, drawing a hand up toward her visor.  No matter how many times she had reminded herself that the decision was made – that it was one she could not change now – she still had to shake her head at the very notion.  “I tried to tell them it was a bad idea.  But at least Shepard is going to help us.  Taking out the signal coming from the dreadnought will be the first step.”

A half-smirk stretched over Kaidan’s lips.  “Was hoping we’d never have to face geth again, but we’ll get it done, Tali.”  Whether or not he was included in that ‘we’ remained to be seen, but he had little hope left for the prospect.

“Thanks.”  It was her turn to shift uncomfortably in her seat.  “By the way, Kaidan, I heard about Earth.”

He looked away, fixing his gaze toward the observation window without truly seeing through it.  “Yeah,” was all he could manage.

“Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” he said.  “It was hard to leave Earth behind like that, but… well, there was nothing we could’ve done on the ground.”

Her voice softened.  “Still, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Suddenly Tali’s omni-tool flashed, and she tapped the display on her arm.  The large, suspended screen that she had been expecting never pulled up.  Shepard had opened a voice-only link.

“Tali, I had gone to the bridge to brief Joker about the dreadnought,” his voice filtered out from the display.  “You couldn’t stand still long enough to wait for me to get back to the war room?”

There was a teasing tone in his voice that made Kaidan’s brow furrow, even if only slightly, but Tali let out a laugh and said, “Maybe I wanted to get back to Engineering and take a look at that drive core this time.  As I recall, the multicore shielding seemed to work pretty well… you’re welcome.  Your Alliance engineers are good, but I’ve still got a few ideas.”

“I’m sure Adams would love to hear them.”

He sounded so much more genuine, and Kaidan had to look away.  How easily Shepard’s words crafted exactly what he wanted known and how… if that was not envy rearing against the back of Kaidan’s mind, then he would never know what to call it.

“Well,” Tali began, glancing in Kaidan’s direction, “I wanted to see some old friends.  I’m in the Starboard Observation.”

An odd silence fell upon the room, and for a moment Tali wondered if Shepard had disconnected, but the comm link was still open and the display was active, so she waited.

“…I’ll be down in a bit.”

The transmission ended, and the orange glow of her omni-tool faded, leaving only the dimmed lights and the stars.  Tali turned toward Kaidan and watched him rise to his feet and cross his arms.

“Is this room for crew only or something?” she asked.  “I guess I _was_ trespassing on the Crew Deck without his knowledge.”

“No, that’s not it,” Kaidan said.  “Shepard wouldn’t limit your freedom to roam the _Normandy_ , Tali; you’re his old friend, too.  I think he was just hoping to talk to you in private.”

“Oh, so you’ve officially claimed this room, then?”  Tali stood up and gestured in his direction.  “Quiet.  Secluded.  Nice view.  I can see why you would.  Privacy is something we value in the Flotilla, but it’s rare.  Sometimes we just need some space.”

“Yeah.”

Tali tilted her head slightly to one side, and, if Kaidan had to guess, he would imagine that she was smiling behind that thick visor.

“I’m glad to see you here,” she said.  “It’s good to see the old crew come together again.”

“Thanks, Tali,” he replied, letting his arms fall to his sides.  “I just wish it was under better circumstances.”

Tali took a single step back.  “It’s better circumstances than—”

She shut her mouth when the distinct hiss of the door filtered in from behind her, and she turned toward it with a new light in her eyes.  Shepard waited for the door to close behind him before he allowed himself a moment to just examine them: Tali standing there with her hands nervously fiddling in front of her midriff, and Kaidan making every valiant effort to maintain eye contact with him despite the disparate thoughts that were undoubtedly crowding his mind.

“All caught up?” he asked, turning his gaze toward Tali.

“For the moment.”  She looked at Kaidan to find him watching Shepard, focused and controlled, like he was some new recruit overly cautious of his own behavior in the legendary Commander Shepard’s presence.  She turned toward Shepard and asked, “Did you need something?”

He shrugged.  “Just wanted you to know that we’re heading for the dreadnought now.  Joker should have us there in no time, so let’s head to the CIC for a quick brief.”

“Sure.”  She headed for the door, only to then hesitate when Shepard did not turn to follow after her.  “I’ll, uh, see you there, then.”

“Yeah.”

When he heard the door finish closing behind him, Shepard folded his arms.

“You too,” he said, and Kaidan’s stoic gaze faltered.  “I’ll need you on this mission.”

Although Kaidan did well in subduing the unexpected smile that had threatened to overtake his face, his eyes failed to conceal that enthusiasm, and Shepard nearly chuckled at the sight.  But then his words stilled every quirk of Shepard’s lips and silenced every unvoiced laugh.

“Aye aye, Commander.”

Shepard shook his head.  _I didn’t think it would get worse… shit, we can’t be taking steps backward at this point._

“‘Commander’?” he said, cocking an eyebrow at him.  “Come on.  I think we’re pretty far past that by now.”

Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck.  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, his eyes finally leaving Shepard’s.  “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, just… no need to put on a ‘good soldier’ show for me.”

That sounded harsher out loud than it did in his head, and he winced when he saw Kaidan’s lip twitch in response.

“Sorry,” he said.  “What I mean is—”

He meant that hated to see that display from Kaidan.  He meant that he hated knowing how much he respected Tali’s decision to ‘keep things strictly business’ in front of the other admirals but loathed the idea that Kaidan felt the need to do the same for him.

“Shit, Kaidan,” he finally said, “you’re better than that.”

Kaidan looked back at him, expression contorted in a way that Shepard had no means to define.  Kaidan needed words.  He had always needed words.  He had always needed to hear with his own ears the absolute certainty in Shepard’s voice, the steadfast determination in his words as an affirmation of all that they lived for, breathed for, fought for.  Even when Shepard had known words would not convince him, he had said them regardless and watched the subtle changes on Kaidan’s face slowly unravel from beneath his stoic control.

So Shepard told him the truth, because he needed it – because he deserved it.

“You’re a strong man,” Shepard clarified.  “You’ve been through so much hell with BAaT and everything else and you just came out the other end stronger.  You rose through the Alliance ranks on your own merit.  You’re the second goddamn human Spectre.  You have so much to be proud of.  And you didn’t need me for any of it.”

_Why didn’t I just say this before?  Damn, Kaidan, I’m sorry—_

Perhaps Kaidan had been hiding his true feelings under a façade for all that time – and perhaps Shepard would never know exactly how long that was – but Kaidan had enough sense to know that there were much larger matters at hand.  He was willing to follow Shepard to the depths of hell.  He was eager to fight by Shepard’s side.  He was determined to set aside his own feelings, whatever they truly were, for Shepard’s mission, no matter what turmoil showed in his eyes as he did so.

And now all he wanted in return was Shepard’s trust, which he already had.

“Don’t act like you don’t deserve my trust, because I trust you completely, Kaidan.”

Kaidan nodded once, and Shepard’s shoulders stiffened, heavy with a weight he would never know.

_I don’t need your unwavering loyalty, Kaidan.  I just need you to be you._

His thought trailed off, weaving another hidden truth into a mutter before his lips could stop it.

“And…”

_God damn it.  Just do it._

“And I’m sorry for what I said before.  You didn’t deserve that.”

When a tiny smile grew on Kaidan’s face, Shepard restrained the sigh of relief that threatened to boil out of his lungs.

“Okay, Shepard.”  It was all Kaidan said.  It was all he needed to say.

And then a sharp sense of realization shot up Shepard’s spine.  There had been no twinge in his stomach when he told Kaidan those truths.  He had no discomfort at his own teasing words.  He had no regret at seeing the aggrieved expression on Kaidan’s face or hearing the tinge of pain in his voice.

But he had merely stated simple facts, akin to those he might include in a report or note when issuing orders.  There was no reason why he should regret stating the truth.

And Kaidan finally felt an odd sort of peace in the quiet, watching as Shepard stood there, entrenched in his own thoughts – plans and calculations about the mission, no doubt – and kept his arms folded, guarded as per usual.  But Kaidan could be content with that.  He had Shepard’s trust, he was finally getting back into the fight, and perhaps Shepard still considered him a good friend.  He had everything he needed right now.

Shepard must have noticed the softening creases at the corners of his eyes, because he then uncrossed his arms and gestured toward the door.

“Come on, let’s get up to the CIC.”

“Sure thing.”

Shepard let Kaidan proceed past him, observing the new confidence in his step and the posture of his shoulders.  And as they stood and waited for the elevator, he looked at Kaidan from the corner of his eye, the subtlest upturn of Kaidan’s lip his reward for the hidden glance, and then refocused on the metal door, lifting his gaze again when the door slid open and Kaidan took an eager step inside. 

Shepard stood there for only a moment, the briefest one he could bear amidst the rampant calculating mindset that always descended upon him prior to his missions, and he seized it for what it was: his colleague and friend readying himself to fight alongside him, true to his word and dedicated in his actions, loyal despite everything Shepard had said and done.

_Still… if only everyone’s loyalty meant as much as yours._


	4. Silence

The long walk down the docking tube was like walking through hell.

Navigating through chunks of scrapped metal and seeing space – punctuated by streaks of gunfire, back and forth between the geth and quarian ships, obscuring the stars and the quarian home world beneath – only through breaches in the bulkheads was nothing new: Shepard had faced ruin of this nature before.

He had seen frigates and cruisers and dreadnoughts alike destroyed in Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel.  He had seen the _Normandy_ herself blown apart by the Collector ship.  He had seen the Reapers descend to Earth in force, devastating both Alliance forces and innocent lives with abandon.  And, despite powering through every instance of death and destruction and every nuance in between, the piercing silence never became easier to bear.

He had watched every event, willing every sound into silence as he planned and calculated and drew countermeasures in his head.  And yet, with the staccato of gunfire underscoring every ship’s explosion and every body’s collapse and every individual scream, the cacophony of death defied the willful silence and filtered into his ears, settling into the back of his mind where it would remain undetectable, emerging with a vengeance to manifest as whispers in the nightmares against which he had no possible defense.

But the silence of the docking tube was pure.  There were no sounds for him to will away.

The space between stars – between every mission – was deathly silent and cruelly uncertain.  Tracing haphazard patterns around the damaged tube dredged up disturbingly clear memories of walking through the shell of the _Normandy_ on Alchera, of scouring the wreckage for life when he knew he would not find it amidst the evidence of his destroyed plans, his lost colleagues, his own halted life.

The mission had begun with a wrinkle in his plan, with all docking tubes secured except for this deeply damaged one, and he had volunteered to take the docking area himself, unwilling to risk his team on some unforeseen circumstance.  Every scattered thought reverberated against his helmet in the confines of its own undesirably quiet stillness.

_Alone – in silence—_

And now every step forward strove for a grounding sense of reality.  He had never before wanted so badly to hear a voice penetrate the silence.

“How are you doing, Shepard?”

Tali’s voice rang in his ear, surprisingly detached, as though asking for a status update.

_Fuck._

“The lack of gravity is a little disorienting,” he said simply.

“The dreadnought has artificial gravity.”  Her voice filtered in through the communicator in his helmet like she was reading some mission brief, and, for a moment, he heard himself in her voice.  “You should be okay once you’re on board.”

He stepped over a ridge, every footfall heavy with weight that had never been there before.  “Until then, I’ll make do with mag boots.”

A much more lighthearted tone entered his ear: “Hey, take your time, Commander.  We’re fine until they, you know… look out a window.”

_Fuck—_

“Geth don’t use windows, remember?” he shot back.  “Structural weakness.”

Joker’s tiny chuckle did little more than jar his step.  “Bet the geth are just sitting there, saying, ‘those organics would never try the no windows thing twice.’”

It was idle banter that meant nothing.  It was the most artificial form of comfort for the unexpected break in his mission plan.  And he pressed forward past it, one step at a time.

And then a huge chunk of the tube detached, drifting into the empty space behind him, and he stumbled forward, arms flailing while he attempted to steady his feet on the jutting scrapped metal that remained before the airlock.  His arms slowly came to rest at his sides, his feet planted firmly against the metal, but his own ragged breaths drifted within his helmet, unwelcome warmth eliciting the faintest sheen of perspiration from his skin, and he shuddered with every thought of the struggle to breathe, of fading into the blackness of space that peeked out from the stillness between the stars, of falling toward the planet with no control and no direction and no hope—

_Fuck!_

Why the feeling of a lack of gravity lingered long after he had boarded the ship itself remained a mystery.  Why he could not shake the weightlessness even in the artificial gravity of the airlock defied explanation.  Why, when he overrode the controls in the next airlock and saw Tali and Kaidan board through the newly unsecured docking tube, his shoulders nearly collapsed under the weight of the mission was impossible to tell.

Why, when Kaidan asked, in that tone so genuinely _Kaidan_ , if he was okay, he replied _better now_ was a troubling thought.  And it festered, a whisper within his helmet wafting about his ears at tense moments: when he first ducked the gun’s shockwaves in the main battery, when two geth fired rockets at the lift and the platform fell from beneath him, when he stood there and beheld the Reaper tech in the drive core.

Reality returned in full force when he witnessed Legion hooked up to the Reaper tech there, dozens of tubes connected to its platform and holding it firmly in place.  Its emotionless cry – “Shepard-Commander, help us.” – pierced the silence like a knife, and Kaidan’s unexpected question – “Do you know this thing?” – twisted the knife in every direction.

_I know what I’m dealing with.  Legion didn’t agree to this._

And he noticed immediately that Kaidan turned his head away, looking to Legion’s platform suspended within the Reaper structure, scrutinizing it for truth, only to conclude that he trusted Shepard with this decision, with the synthetics that had followed Saren and had swarmed Ashley’s position on Virmire, and that he respected Shepard’s judgment on knowing his allies from his foes.

But Shepard’s brow furrowed beneath his helmet, invisible to Kaidan or Tali or even Legion, endless questions swirling about in his head like a tide, all demanding exit simultaneously, but he managed to maintain enough control to subdue the ones that threatened to contradict every scrap of certainty he had left.  He had decided to rewrite the geth heretics, he had decided to ally himself with Legion, he had decided to trust the geth even after Tali had interrogated him up and down about it – he should have had no questions left.

There had to be a more sinister plot here.

“How’d the Reapers get control of the geth?” he asked.

“They did not,” Legion answered.  “The creators attacked.  The geth wished to live.  The old machines extended an offer.”

Shepard joined his team on the lift at the other end of the room, emerging at the mezzanine that circled around the area as a second level, and headed for the console to unsecure the hardware blocks that shackled Legion’s operating protocols, but his hesitation grew longer with every iteration of the only remaining question that rattled about within his helmet: _Then what the hell did I do all that for?_

He turned toward the central structure, leaving his hand suspended over the console, demanding an answer before he might make any commitment now.

“So we went to that geth station and rewrote the heretics for what— nothing?” he spat.

“No.  You successfully rewrote the heretics.  The decision to ally with the old machines was difficult.  Had the creators not attacked, it would have been unnecessary.”

Shepard listened, gaze fixed forward, as he ran every scenario in his head, calculated every outcome, reasoned through every motive the geth would have for—

“So the geth only signed on with the Reapers to save themselves.”  Kaidan’s musings, words spoken aloud but directed at only himself, earned him a glance from Shepard.

“Nothing excuses an alliance with the Reapers.”  Tali’s voice seethed through her helmet, bleeding through their open comm link to the point where Shepard stopped and stared at her.  “They could’ve found another way.  Damn it!  I begged them to negotiate rather than attack!  I did—”

_Enough already._

“Let’s just get Legion out of there.”  _I’ll deal with this bullshit later._

With Legion’s hardware blocks removed, it descended from the Reaper structure and escaped to the platform on the lower level, peering back at the place of its imprisonment as a wall of energy collapsed and then burst out with a shockwave that faded only at the furthest edges of the room.  Legion had disabled the dreadnought’s drive core as a gesture of cooperation, and once the weapons and barriers were offline, Tali contacted the quarian admirals to make that fact known.

And as geth reinforcements arrived and began to flood the second level, Shepard dreaded hearing the admirals’ voices over the communicator in his helmet as they bickered amongst themselves about whether to attack the dreadnought or to let the fleets retreat.  Gerrel argued every step of the way, overriding Raan’s protests, readying his fleet for an attack despite every plea and every shout.

Tali ducked behind a deactivated console when her shield was depleted, and she cried out, “What are they doing?  We’re still on board!”

He could not focus in all this noise.

_Damn it – shut up, all of you—_

“Shepard, watch it!” Kaidan’s voice rang over the comm link, and Shepard finally acted and vaulted for the nearest wall on instinct.

Kaidan overloaded a geth prime’s shield and called to Tali to finish it off with an energy drain for her own downed shield, and the resulting burst of electricity hit the nearby troopers with enough force to send them stumbling backward a few steps, weakened and guns misaligned, granting the perfect opportunity for a set of final shots.

Shepard peered out from behind the wall he had taken as cover.  He took aim at the trooper nearest the console that Tali had hidden behind, but he hesitated upon seeing Kaidan’s shield taken down by a second prime unit.  As soon as Kaidan fell into cover and glanced back at him – and he could see the whites of Kaidan’s eyes through the glass of his helmet – Shepard took the shot, unloading a quarter of a clip of disruptor ammo-charged fire from his assault rifle upon the trooper, and then leveled his sights at the prime at the other end.  A combat drone from Tali and another clip’s worth of well-aimed shots took the prime down more quickly than he had expected, and he could finally release the breath that had wedged itself in his throat.

_You okay?—Better now._

When the path was cleared, the geth reinforcements had fallen, and the team returned to the main level, the genuine tone of Kaidan’s voice that had lingered in his ear was broken only by a sudden order from Gerrel.

“All ships, open fire!”

An explosion behind him sent Shepard stumbling forward, and he shifted his weight between his feet as he peered back over his shoulder, watching the Reaper structure in the drive core collapse in fire.  A grip on his armored upper arm forced his gaze back, and Kaidan retracted his hand in silence.  Shepard shuddered under the sudden sharp pang of dread that shot up his spine, and he hurriedly looked around for Legion, whose mechanical voice rang out from the walkway below, urging the three of them to make haste to the hangar that housed the dreadnought’s small fighters.

Curt orders to hold fire fell on deaf ears.  So Shepard ran, never looking back, listening only for words from his teammates.  Tali cried out about the admirals’ unresponsiveness as she followed Shepard toward the hangar, and Kaidan shouted about the hangar door collapsing on itself, and then, for a moment, he wondered where he was: he slowly picked himself up off the ground, shaking off the dregs of falling from the second-level walkway in the hangar, when he heard Legion state that it had taken control of the fighter’s docking protocols.

The three of them ran together, through the fire, through the explosions, through the smoke and destruction and sounds of grating metal that all permeated the hangar.

A blast on the platform behind them shattered the environmental field and sent all three adrift into the weightlessness of the breached hangar.  Tali caught hold of a console, while Shepard floated toward a docked fighter and clung to it as best he could, his hands grasping for purchase against the frictionless metal and his legs dangling in the empty space beneath him.  He peered over his shoulder to find Kaidan drifting toward the breached hangar door, and he held his breath, watching him float into the empty regions of space, watching him fall aimlessly into the darkness surrounding the planet below, watching his own hand reach out for him, fingers extended but unable to grasp, unable to save him—

Legion grabbed Kaidan’s arm and reined him back in toward the platform, and Shepard steadied himself and released his breath, a sharp sound that no one else would ever hear.

“ _Normandy_ to Shepard,” came Joker’s hail over the communicator.  “We’re reading a loss of gravity.  You okay over there?”

“Fine,” Shepard said, willing his voice into the firm tone that he had mastered long ago.  “We’re leaving in a geth fighter.  Transmitting rendezvous coordinates.”  He shoved off the docked fighter to drift toward the one Legion had commandeered, keeping his trajectory straight and his eyes fixed forward.

He nearly fell into Tali’s lap when he stumbled through the fighter’s open door.  With a quick glance at Kaidan, Shepard settled into position next to him and swallowed hard, the adrenaline pumping through his veins with sharp pulses, forcing his fingers to twitch within their gauntlets.  Every one of their tiny moves toward Kaidan, each a reflexive reach to pull him back from the darkness of space, was now being actively suppressed.  He stared forward as Legion made its final adjustments on the fighter’s controls and turned its head slightly toward him.

“Does the storage compartment have adequate room, Shepard-Commander?”

“We’re fine,” he called back.  “Go.”

_Just get me the hell out of here._

The fighter undocked and sped through the breach in the hangar, slipping through the constant fire of quarian ships, every movement disorienting and uncertain and directionless, and yet Shepard was thankful for the lack of visible black space.  With the geth dreadnought fading into the distance, he would never know the explosion that cast shockwaves through the space above Rannoch’s atmosphere and that rattled the quarian frigates drifting away from it.

_Thank god geth ships don’t have windows._

And still, in the silent vacuum of space, he swore he heard the _Normandy_ explode behind him.

When Legion piloted the fighter into the _Normandy’s_ shuttle bay and docked it in place, Shepard finally felt the adrenaline draining from his veins, leaving an odd sensation in its wake.  It washed over his muscles to the point where he could finally relax his shoulders, only to have Tali clamber over him when the door swung open.  She was eager to get out as soon as it was safe to do so, and he could not blame her for that.

Kaidan turned his head toward Shepard, but Shepard had shifted, already standing up to leave the fighter behind.  Kaidan followed after him and then loitered nearby, merely watching for any sign, listening for any word, waiting for any sort of measured, definite action from the commander.

Dominating over the ambient lull of the shuttle bay were sounds of clanking metal and crewmen darting about to secure the geth fighter.  Shepard stood there in recycled air, feet finally steady on the familiar deck, but within the confines of his helmet, there was nothing: hushed thoughts, trapped words, utter quiet.

And then the weight on his shoulder, the heavy pressure of a hand placed so gently on his armor, forced the stagnant breath from his lungs.  He turned his head and looked over his shoulder to find Kaidan’s eyes meeting his, with nothing else visible from beneath his helmet, but they were enough.

Kaidan’s understanding gaze on him.  Kaidan’s unspoken voice in his ear.  Kaidan’s calm hand upon his armor.

Grounded, stable, certain.

_Fuck._

Kaidan lowered his hand to his side and waited for Shepard’s gaze to retreat like he knew it would.  But the quick glance of Shepard’s eyes, peering back at him through the narrow strip of glass in his helmet, spoke volumes in the silence.  Shepard again turned his head straight, tucking his gaze away, stiffening his shoulders beneath his armor until they were again rigid and controlled.

And he refused to look back as he left, still fully armored and now fully submerged in the whispers trapped within his helmet.


	5. Voice

_“Kaidan!”_

_“Let him go!”_

_“No—!”_

_“Grab that thing.  Bring it with us.”_

_“Kaidan!  Kaidan…”_

Shepard woke with a start, his eyes snapping open and his head lifting from the table with an unsteady jolt, and it took a few moments for his vision to focus, to return to reality.  He glanced around the desktop to find datapads scattered all about where his forearms were resting on the flat surface, and he brought one hand to his forehead as he settled against the back of the chair.

He had faced dreams of shadows and trees and fire, of trudging through his own subconscious in slow motion, every movement slow and hazy as though he were underwater and drowning, blurry vision marring his sight and loud whispers wafting about the air all around him: whispers of death, of all the souls he could not save, forced into silence and resurging with a vengeance from their collective prison in the deepest recesses of his mind.

And every dream of the past, each so lucidly recalled in the haze of unconsciousness, was tainted by those same whispered voices in his ear.  Every time he dreamed of Virmire, he woke before he could relive that moment of watching from the _Normandy_ as the bomb exploded into a mushroom cloud that distorted the planet’s surface below him.

But it had been a long time since he dreamed of that choice on Virmire.  As a tactician, the choice was clear-cut, but as a human being, it was dubious.  The choice to leave one of his crew behind, the decision to sacrifice one for the many, the moment of callous arithmetic rattling about in his head until he was faced with no other option: he had to make a call, he had to be certain under impossible circumstances, he had to relegate one of his colleagues to death’s hands for the greater good of the mission.

He had spent so much time convincing himself that he had made the right decision.  He had reassured Kaidan that the choice was made and that it was the correct one.  He had told him over and over again as he watched Kaidan struggle through coping with Ashley’s death, the guilt somehow weighing upon his shoulders much more heavily than it did upon Shepard’s.  And, after enough iterations of it, Shepard learned to never look back, to know with calculated certainty that he had been right, and to know that he should not lament it, not when he could still so clearly hear Ashley’s voice, her last words a low whisper in his ear.

_“I understand, Commander.  I don’t regret a thing.”_

In dreams of Virmire, there were two voices in his ear and one decision to make.

But not in this dream of Mars.  There were no whispers from Kaidan.  There was only his own voice calling Kaidan’s name over and over again, drifting aimlessly in the silence that had overwhelmed all else, until finally silence was absolute and loss was the only certainty.

The horror of watching a colleague fall was intertwined with the guilt of hesitation.  The shock of seeing his unconscious face was laced with the fear of losing him for good.  He could see nothing but Kaidan’s lifeless body lying on the ground and he could feel nothing but panic until Liara’s voice forced its way through the wall of insecurity.

There was no thinking through it.  There was nothing he could have planned for or calculated or measured with certainty.  There was only Kaidan – limp, silent, and dying.

It was a nightmare.

Shepard lowered his hand and ran it slantwise over his face, wiping away the last dregs of sleep and the final moments of that memory, and again his eyes scanned over the desktop.  He must have collapsed in exhaustion after the mission to disable the geth dreadnought.

 _What the hell was I doing?_   He pulled up his omni-tool.  _Shit, it’s been a couple of hours._

He remembered returning from the dreadnought and removing his armor in the sanctuary of his cabin, away from the knowing gaze he feared and the gentle touch that made him shiver, away from that unspoken voice that wafted about his ears.  And he remembered a conference with Hackett in the comm room about securing the quarian fleet, and then meeting with the quarian admirals themselves.  Punching Gerrel in the gut and tossing him from the ship had been immensely satisfying.  Telling Xen that dissecting Legion’s platform was completely off the table had been a small victory over all the pointless arguments.

But then talking to Legion had shattered his newfound boldness.  It had claimed that Shepard’s decision to rewrite the geth heretics now put them at a tactical disadvantage; the number of geth allied with the Reapers had increased as a result of that decision.  When Shepard had called it a _mistake_ – or, rather, attempted to have Legion state that fact back to him – the geth unit had taken a moment to process the question.

“This was not a foreseen outcome, but we cannot change the decision once it is made,” Legion had clarified.

_Yeah, I get that._

And then he had returned to his cabin, asked EDI for preliminary scans of the coordinates Raan had provided, began planning on how to decide which mission to take next, and… nothing.  Nothing but a nightmare.  Nothing but the deathly silence that lingered between every mission, in aggressively vivid nightmares and in the dark corners of the _Normandy_ herself.

But Kaidan was here.  He was on board the _Normandy_.  He was dedicated and loyal and alive.  His presence meant more than Shepard had ever thought it would have… more than it ever should have.

He had misjudged Kaidan’s need to be grounded in reality; he could admit that.  Kaidan was well aware of reality.  He was focused and devoted as he had always been, and, even if he was struggling with himself, his strength lay in his commitment to everything – to the mission, to the _Normandy_ , to Shepard.  And Shepard had to quietly laugh at himself: he never thought he would be the one facing uncertainty, however small and insignificant it was, and seeking some semblance of consolation in Kaidan’s words, but he valued his opinion as a soldier, as a colleague, and as a friend.

More than that, though, he just wanted to hear Kaidan’s voice.  That was all.

_Nothing wrong with that._

So he pulled up the display on his omni-tool and opened a comm link, ensuring that the video screen was disabled.  When the connection was established, he spoke first.

“Kaidan.”

“Hey, Shepard,” came the response, somewhere between a statement and a question, and Shepard imagined the puzzled look on his face that must have accompanied it.  “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good.”  A moment of hesitation left an awkward sense of stillness in the room.  “So, uh… what’s up?”

“I wanted to get your opinion on something,” Shepard said.

“Oh,” Kaidan replied, a higher-pitched tone lacing his voice that fit perfectly with Shepard’s mental picture of his bewildered expression.  “Okay.”

“You busy?”

“No, not at all.”

Shepard settled into his chair, resisting the urge to put his boots up on the desk.  “Good, then you can talk for a bit.”

A trace of concern underlay Kaidan’s next question.  “You want me to come up there?”

_Ye—_

“No, just tell me what you think.”

“Okay, lay it on me.”

Shepard leaned forward in the chair, rested his forearms on his thighs, and said, “We’ve got a stranded quarian admiral and a server controlling geth fighter squadrons.”

A moment of pause left the room utterly quiet.  “Wow,” Kaidan eventually said.  “Okay…”

“Yeah,” Shepard muttered, staring down at his omni-tool as though he might have actually seen Kaidan there.  “Legion said we took out long-range control with the dreadnought and the geth are currently disorganized, but they’ve got some kind of short-range signal.  And that signal will eventually come online from a Reaper base on Rannoch.”

“Damn.  Any other good news?”

“We don’t know where the Reaper base is.”

“Great.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what about the admiral?”

Shepard picked himself up to again settle against the back of the chair, unable to get comfortable on the starchy fabric of standard-issue furniture.  “Got his approximate coordinates from Raan and had them downloaded for EDI to analyze,” he replied, lazily crossing one outstretched leg over the other.

“Okay,” Kaidan said for the umpteenth time, and Shepard shook his head and suppressed the faint upturn of his lip that threatened to grow into a smile.  “It must be hard for them, knowing one of their own is stranded.  Still, though…” 

Another pause from Kaidan, suggesting that he was thinking too hard – or perhaps just hard enough to weigh what little he knew of his options.

“I mean, we need the quarians’ help, but their hands aren’t entirely clean in this,” he added.  “The admirals seem unfocused, like they can’t decide what they want to do now.  I know Tali’s trying, but she can only do so much, you know?”

That breathy half-laugh, that sound so characteristically Kaidan, filtered out from Shepard’s omni-tool display.

“Trying to get a word in edgewise when everyone’s got their own agendas already… it’s got to be frustrating.”

“Especially when you don’t have the luxury of just cutting the Council’s transmission,” Shepard muttered, mostly to himself.  His gaze fell back to his omni-tool when he heard Kaidan laugh, an open and honest chuckle that Shepard had not heard in what felt like years.  And perhaps it had actually been years.

“You did that?”

It was an odd tone, both disapproval and surprise underscored by the last remnants of laughter.  Maybe Shepard had misunderstood more than he thought.  He had expected disheartened scorn for his uncouth actions, but Kaidan had actually laughed, so that must have meant something.

 _Not sure_ what _, exactly, but… doesn’t matter._

“Yeah, I may have ‘lost the signal’ a couple times,” Shepard admitted, suddenly having no shame at the sheepishness of his smirk when he said it out loud.  It was not like anyone could see it.  “Joker thought it was funny as hell.”

“Hm.”

Something like a hum of amusement emanated from his omni-tool, though Shepard tried not to think that it meant anything at all.  Still, he had missed this, this amicable conversation that flowed naturally between two good teammates, between two good friends.

“So,” Kaidan began again, jarring Shepard into an awkward stillness in his chair, “basically, we’ve got the admiral and the geth server to deal with.”

_Reality – it’s a son of a bitch._

“Tell me what you would do.”

“What?”

“Tell me what you think we should do.”

Kaidan sighed and answered, “I don’t know, Shepard.  That’s a tough call.  I’m a little wary of trusting the geth, but you seem to have a way with people of all sorts.  There’s a geth on board the _Normandy_ , for god’s sake.”

Shepard shrugged his shoulders.  “Yeah, Legion’s good with me.”

“Then it’s good with me, too,” Kaidan replied.  “Too bad this long-standing war has to come to a head now, of all times.  Makes it difficult to think of a future for either group.  I bet Tali would have a pretty strong opinion one way versus the other, though.”

“Tali would agree with Admiral Koris.”

“Ah.”  That moment of realization was evident in the pitch of Kaidan’s voice.  “On the dreadnought, Tali mentioned that she was for negotiating with the geth rather than attacking them.  Think Koris wanted the same thing?”

“Yeah,” Shepard answered, his lip curling at one corner.

Kaidan’s perceptive nature had always been valuable, even when it was relegated to hindsight at certain times, and, however much Shepard did not appreciate the idea, even when it dredged up events that should have been left behind in the past where they belonged.

“Koris’ ship crash landed on Rannoch, though,” he continued.  “Sacrificed his vessel to save a liveship.”

“Let’s start there, then,” Kaidan said.  “Get him back up to the Fleet while we still have some time before the short-range signal is put back in place.  Bring back some leadership so the quarian civilians don’t panic.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”  The subsequent short pause ended with a slightly worried question: “Anything else you want to talk about?”

“No,” Shepard lied.

They lapsed into silence one more time, dark and unsettling, and Shepard allowed it to fester until it began to grate on his nerves.  After the dreadnought, after that nightmare, he had only wanted to hear Kaidan’s voice, to hear him laugh or shout or complain or just give some indication that he was alive, that he was living his life as he should have been.  And there was no reason for it, no reason to want to hear that voice, not after he had so clearly heard its pained inflection on the Citadel and its desperate tone on the _Normandy_.  He should have required Kaidan’s silent commitment to the mission and nothing more.

But he wanted to talk.  He wanted to tell Kaidan everything about Virmire and Horizon and Mars and every other circle of hell that they had already slogged through, and he wanted to hear Kaidan’s response, his words, his voice.  He simply wanted it.

_Not much else makes sense right now, anyway.  Might as well._

So he opened his mouth to speak.

“You know,” he began, pausing to mentally trudge through his sentence before his mouth could vocalize anything he might regret, “the Council contacted me after Virmire.  I cut the transmission halfway through.  They tried to feed me a bunch of shit about Saren using the idea of Sovereign and the Reapers as some kind of fabrication to mislead me.  But I wasn’t going to just stand there and listen to them spout that crap.  Not after that… not after Ash.”

Any hint of amusement, or whatever it had actually been, was entirely absent from Kaidan’s voice when he finally responded.

“I’ve been thinking about her lately, too,” he said.  “This is her fight, too, you know.  We’ve been pretty lucky these days, all things considered.  Maybe she’s looking out for us.”

Kaidan’s voice was somber, and Shepard felt that feared pang of regret stir in his stomach.  He had to look away, to stare at the floor or the ceiling or the fish tank or simply anything but the orange display overlapping his forearm, suddenly self-conscious of his gaze, as though Kaidan were looking back at him through the voice-only link of their omni-tools, as though Kaidan could have seen the uncharacteristic weakness staining his face.

“She was looking out for you on Mars,” he finally said.

The noise from his omni-tool was foreign, not quite a hushed laugh but neither a mutter of agreement.  It was the sound of man again struggling with himself after so many years of silence.

“Yeah,” came Kaidan’s brittle reply, “she sure was.”

And before another silence could settle between them, Shepard spoke – no thought behind it, no rationale other than his own existing certainty that Kaidan was still a good man, a good soldier, and a good friend.

“Hey, come with me on the rescue mission.”

“Huh?”

“You did well on the dreadnought,” Shepard clarified.  “There’s bound to be plenty more geth on Rannoch.”

“You want me on the ground team?”  Kaidan sounded genuinely surprised, and another unsettled ache wedged itself into Shepard’s gut upon hearing it.

“Only if you’re up for it,” he said, wincing through the slightly teasing tone of his own voice.

Kaidan’s response was immediate, firm.  “I’m up for it, Shepard.”

“Good to hear.”  Shepard again leaned forward in his chair, his eyes fixed on the scuffed lines of the metal floor, and with the unsettled feeling in his gut slowly dissipating, he shook his head, unable to stop the single half-laugh that slipped from his throat.  “And, hey,” he started again, feeling the lines at the corners of his eyes soften with every word, “thanks.”

“For what?”

“For sharing your thoughts with me.  For just talking to me.”

“Uh… no problem.”

“Well, I don’t think I say it enough, so thanks.”

If Shepard had to guess, he would imagine that Kaidan was no longer wearing the confused expression that had seemed so amusing a few minutes ago.  Now, he was likely exhibiting that concerned face that could never be satisfied without a straight answer.

“What’s this really about, Shepard?”

_I knew it._

“The next mission.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure nothing else’s bothering you?”

“You don’t believe me?”

Kaidan stumbled over his words at that stark question.  “N-No… I mean, yes?”  A troubled sigh slipped through the display of Shepard’s omni-tool, and he merely continued to stare at the floor, waiting it out.  “I-I mean, I just figured—”

“There’s nothing more to it, Kaidan.”  _Stop overthinking this… please._

Kaidan cleared his throat, likely to grant himself a moment of pause, a moment to think.  “Okay, as long as you’re sure about that.”

And Shepard willed his voice into that stern tone normally reserved for _Commander Shepard_ : “I am.”

“All right,” Kaidan replied, his voice softer but seemingly satisfied.  “Then, when should I plan to head out for Rannoch?”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

A breathy chuckle from Kaidan finally made Shepard grin again.  “Yeah, I guess that’s true in this situation,” he said.  “Okay, Shepard.  I’ll head to the shuttle bay and let Cortez know.  We’ll get coordinates from EDI.”

“Thanks.”

Shepard ended the transmission, and the omni-tool’s orange display faded, leaving the lights over his desk and model ship display cases and the fish tank at the other end of the room.  He leaned back in the chair and heaved a sigh into the quiet stillness that followed.

_Thanks, Kaidan.  That helped more than you’ll ever know._


	6. Distance

“Done,” Kaidan called, turning his head to look back over his shoulder.  “The gun is offline.”

Shepard’s response was instant, mechanical.  “I’ll signal the shuttle.”

By the time Kaidan stepped away from the console at the base of the antiaircraft gun, Shepard had already turned on his heel, his hand clutching the flare gun and pointing it straight up.  Within moments, after the red light shot into the air and faded into a string of smoke, the shuttle emerged from behind the outline of the central geth facility.  As the shuttle fired half a dozen missiles at the jamming tower, Kaidan took a few involuntary steps backward.  The orange flash of light from every small explosion and the sound of shrapnel grating across the facility’s metal walls made his skin crawl beneath his armor.

Shepard watched the tower collapse in fire, keeping his gaze fixed forward as Tali and Kaidan stood in silence at either side of him.  They glanced at one another over Shepard’s stiff shoulders, then simultaneously turned their attention to the commander when they heard the loud call ringing out from his communicator.

“Dorn, it’s Zaal’Koris.”

Tali glanced back at Kaidan when she heard that voice, however faint it was by the time it reached her ears, and she took a cautious step forward, drawing a hand up to her faceplate as she listened for any other audible calls emanating from Shepard’s communicator.  When he peered over his shoulder at her, she halted in place and lowered her gaze to the ground.

“Dorn, are you there?  Dorn!”

Shepard stared forward at the destroyed tower and brought his hand up to his communicator.  “This is Commander Shepard,” he said, pausing on a quick motion directed at his teammates, an outstretched hand pointing to the shuttle that was coming around on a second pass.  “Dorn didn’t make it, Admiral.”

“He didn’t?  Ah… I see.”

“I’m coming in with a shuttle,” Shepard continued, heading for the shuttle that now hovered at the far end of the platform.  “Where are you?”

He boarded the shuttle after Tali and Kaidan, keeping his eyes locked forward, staring at the bulkhead at the other end of the shuttle’s interior, leveling his hand at his communicator with controlled stillness.  Tali holstered her shotgun and looked to Kaidan, who simply shrugged.  Shepard was normally focused and diligent during his missions, but he seemed more frustrated than usual, and Kaidan took one of the jump seats and decided to wait it out.

“My surviving crew found their way to a clearing,” Koris eventually answered.  “I’ll upload their location.”

“Stay together,” Shepard said, his tone firm.  “We’ll meet you there.”

The shuttle lifted off, jarring Kaidan in his seat, and Tali stumbled forward at the sudden motion, but she quickly recovered and shot a glare over her shoulder in the direction of the pilot’s seat.  Kaidan grew a weak smile and gestured his head toward the other jump seat.

“Good idea,” she said, keeping her voice as low as possible, still listening intently for any word from Koris she could possibly overhear.  Kaidan afforded her a quick nod, stood up, gripped one of the overhead bars for stability, and turned his attention back to Shepard, leveling his gaze with him directly, though Shepard did not turn to face him – or anyone, for that matter.

“No, the geth have cut me off,” Koris suddenly protested, and even from that angle, Kaidan could see the creases forming at the corners of Shepard’s eyes.  “I hear another wave approaching.”

“Give us your coordinates,” Shepard demanded, tilting his chin down, glaring at the bulkhead through those half-lidded eyes that required absolute obedience.

“Leave me,” Koris persisted.  “My crew will soon be overrun.”

“So will you,” came Shepard’s rebuttal.

“My people are noncombatants, Shepard.  They’ll be slaughtered.  Rescue them.”

Shepard turned on his heel, finally facing his team, and Kaidan nearly gawked at the sight: his brow furrowed with deep lines, his jaw gritted, his teeth clenched, his eyes direct and firm and yet so incredibly tired.  Shepard gripped one of the overhead bars, his fist tightening around it like he would grasp the handle of a gun, readying his trigger finger for the perfect shot.

_You want it to be that way?  Fine._

“So your ship goes down and you give up,” Shepard spat, his tone suddenly seething with the frustration he had suppressed throughout the entire mission thus far.  “Your people are fighting for their lives up there!”

“My people are down here.”

Shepard shook his head.  “The entire Civilian Fleet is depending on you,” he muttered, eyes narrowing, the lines embedded in his face expanding with every word.  “Who’s going to look out for them?  Admiral Gerrel?  Xen?”

Koris had but one argument left: “I cannot abandon my crew.”

Shepard tilted his head and stared forward, past his teammates, past the bulkhead at the other end of the shuttle, past every argument that strove so valiantly to change the decision he had already made.

“We save dozens now or millions later,” he said, knowing full well the illusion of choice that was being presented.  “Your decision, Admiral.”

Kaidan watched the furrow of Shepard’s brow and listened to the decisiveness of his words.  Shepard was always calculating, always reasoning, always persuading – he wielded his words as he did his weapons, holding a steady grip on the trigger and on his arguments with such stoic control that it was an art form.  He always committed to a mission and he always achieved it, his every decision a balancing act that he bore for the entire galaxy.

And people respected his words.

“Ancestors, forgive me,” came Koris’ voice over the communicator.  “Uploading my coordinates.”

Shepard glanced at the vid screen at the other end of the shuttle, peering over Kaidan’s shoulder without truly seeing him standing there, and declared, “We’re coming.”

The shuttle’s thrusters reengaged and sped toward the cliff that Koris had specified, and Shepard mounted the turret once the bay doors opened.  The admiral was barely visible from that distance, a tiny figure hiding behind a rocky ridge while geth began to filter in from every direction, and Tali and Kaidan gawked when they strode over to observe from either side of their commander.

Kaidan glanced at Tali, who returned it with a quick look of her own, and shouted, “The admiral’s outgunned down there!”

Shepard shifted in position, his comeback immediate: “I’ve got this!”

The gunfire from the turret was precise, controlled – every perfect shot that Shepard had already demonstrated at previous areas throughout the mission – a noisy staccato that left ringing in the ears and a barrage of quick, bright lights that streaked over the horizon as they raced toward the ground.  As the shuttle slowly drifted around the edge of the cliff, geth fell by the handful under the hail of gunfire, splattering the ground with gray fluid as Koris ran past them, darting between ridges and ducking behind boulders along the way.

When Koris finally reached the shuttle at the edge of the cliff, Shepard shouted at him, “Admiral, come on!”

But the admiral hesitated, looking over his shoulder as another geth readied its weapon.  He ducked in time to avoid the rocket that careened past him and flew through the shuttle’s opened bay doors, and Shepard gritted his teeth and unloaded a few dozen bullets into the synthetic, halting the last stand where it was.

Koris leapt into the shuttle and turned around, observing as the turret retreated into the bay and Shepard issued him a curt, “Welcome aboard.”

Kaidan watched the admiral pace the deck in short lines: Koris had chosen not to sacrifice himself, but he was still fumbling over his decision.

“Shepard, my crew,” Koris finally said as he strode toward the vid screen at the other end of the shuttle.  “Perhaps there’s still time.”  He activated the communicator and called, “Hello, this is Zaal’Koris!  Does anyone copy?  Hello!”

When he only received silence in return, Koris lowered his head and slipped into his own quiet stillness – reverence for the dead, lamentation for the lost.

And then Kaidan looked to Shepard, whose expression was entirely foreign to him.

Shepard had known before embarking on this rescue mission that he would face death in some form or another, and every argument, every rebellious little word that refused to follow his plan, chipped away at the surface of his certainty, of his ability to know that he was doing all that he could.

He had to know that the sacrifice was for the right reason.  He had to show no weakness or sympathy or hesitation.  He had to be strong when no one else could be.  He had an unbearable weight upon his shoulders, and every death – no matter how many times he reminded himself that he had made every right decision – lingered in the dark areas of space, watching his actions from the shadows, haunting his sleep and forcing the air from his lungs when he had no chance of resistance.  He had to find certainty in the darkness that refused definition.

He took a cautious step toward Koris, features stoic and eyes fixed forward.

“We’ve got to go.”

Koris took one of the empty jump seats at the other end of the shuttle, leaned forward, rested his forearms over his thighs, and clasped his hands together.

“I pray they found comfort in the home world’s skies,” he said, mostly to himself, but the tone of his voice made Shepard shudder from several feet away.

As the shuttle gently rocked, Tali moved closer to Koris to offer her condolences: a simple hand placed upon his shoulder, at which he leaned back against the seat and nodded once in her direction.  Shepard’s gaze fell to the metal floor of the shuttle as he turned away, but he upturned his eyes to find Kaidan’s when he realized how closely the major was standing to him.  And, as if mirroring that consoling gesture, he placed a hand atop Shepard’s armor at his shoulder.

“You okay?” he said, voice soft and yet serious.

Shepard glanced at Tali and Koris through the corner of his eye.  They were engaged in some conversation in which he truly had no interest, and he turned his attention back to Kaidan with a frown, his lips parting to release the breath that Kaidan’s gentle hand had so efficiently forced from his lungs.  And there Kaidan was, standing before him, taking on a piece of the burden that Shepard had never wanted to share, breathing in Shepard’s frustrations and reaffirming his commitment to everything all at once.

As the adrenaline seeped from his veins and his mind settled into the relative safety of the shuttle, away from the ground, away from the mission, away from the death and destruction, Shepard could finally see Kaidan.  He stood there, still and stiff, and took him in: Kaidan’s expression, Kaidan’s posture, Kaidan’s dedication.  It was the purest form of comfort for a mission tainted by the loud whispers of inevitable death cries in his ear, and the gentle hand at his shoulder was no longer heavy.

He could see the way Kaidan’s eyes probed his, genuine and honest and pure, finding life and certainty where there was only death and doubt.  He could see the subtle curl of Kaidan’s lip, the happiness that peeked out from the dark corners of his mind at the suggestion that Shepard might actually let him meet his gaze.  And with nothing to hide behind, nothing clouding the space between them, he could see so clearly the hint of hope in Kaidan’s eyes, and he edged closer to it, unconscious to his surroundings so he could see it reflected in his eyes, breathe it in for himself—

_…Oh, shit!_

Shepard took a step back, watching as Kaidan’s hand slipped from his shoulder, and then his gaze fell, unable to look Kaidan in the eye and unwilling to see the change upon his face.  He had stopped thinking about it, he had let himself sink into how natural it was to have Kaidan at his side, talking like friends and fighting like old soldiers – and he had let his guard down when he should have kept his distance.

He should have been the only one to bear any burden.  He should have known better than to let Kaidan see his frustrations or hear his weakness.

And Kaidan had looked at him as though he were falling.

_This is wrong.  It’s all wrong.  All of it._

“I’m fine,” he finally answered, his eyes still fixed on the floor, his words firm but his lips quivering.  Kaidan took a step back, his eyes darting back and forth between Shepard’s, seeking some cue from the contorted features of his expression, but ultimately his search was futile.

Kaidan chanced a glance at Tali and Koris, but they appeared to have moved on to some other topic: something about expecting to find a geth on board the _Normandy_ , which had evidently caught Koris off guard but which had also rendered him preoccupied and intensely inquisitive.

“Shepard, you don’t have to take this all on yourself,” Kaidan said.

Shepard lifted his gaze.  “This isn’t the time or place for that conversation, Kaidan,” he shot back, and he shifted on his feet, clutching the overhead bar with a much firmer grasp, his fingers curling around it with a newfound vehemence that strained against his gauntlets.  Seeing the twitch of Kaidan’s lip halted his words before he might have actually vocalized more.

“What’s the matter?” Kaidan asked, mindful of the volume of his voice.  “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Shepard replied, letting his gaze again fall away.  “I’m just— I’m just tired, Kaidan.”

A true statement, though it did little to ease Kaidan’s nerves, and the major heaved a sigh in surrender.  He had enough sense to know when to stop – or, rather, he did now, after Shepard had shut him down during their discussion immediately prior to the mission.  Whatever Shepard refused to confess to then still lingered in the air between them even now, in the tiny distance between them, in the empty space that refused acknowledgement despite its blatancy.

Shepard shook his head, refusing to look up, refusing to see the confining space between them.  So Kaidan let his eyes fall into that space, the thick air that constricted every word in his throat, and swallowed his own voice.

And when Shepard finally looked up, the withdrawn look upon Kaidan’s face sliced through the thickness of the air like a knife, and he drew in a sharp breath through his clenched teeth, bearing the sudden pain as though it were another battle wound.

_Damn it, Kaidan, why can’t anything be straightforward when it comes to you?  Why can’t I know I’m doing the right thing?_

He knew that, given enough time and willful negligence, the wound would heal over to form a harmless scar.  He _had_ to know it, or he would forever regret it.

But why his chest felt tight rather than his stomach remained a question without an answer.

Despite the quarians’ conversation carrying on in the background, the ride back to the _Normandy_ was silent.  When the shuttle docked in the bay and the side door opened, Shepard gestured toward the hangar, and Kaidan proceeded through the open door, only to hesitate when Shepard did not follow after him.

“Kaidan, you’re dismissed,” he said.  “I’ll talk to you later.”

Kaidan looked back over his shoulder, watching the subtle twitches at the corners of Shepard’s mouth, as though he were struggling to hold down the rest of his words.  But Kaidan was an experienced soldier: he knew when to stop asking questions, he knew how to take orders that masqueraded as suggestions, and he knew how to quit while he was ahead.

He nodded once and stepped away from the shuttle, turning partway on his heel to face him directly.

“Sure, Shepard,” he said, and again he turned away and headed for the armor locker at the other end of the shuttle bay.  He would settle for that.  It was not as though he had a choice.

Then, he heard the exasperated tone behind him, the hasty voice that refused to surrender to its own exhaustion.

“EDI, contact the Fleet and see if they can send an envoy ship to pick up Admiral Koris,” Shepard said, looking up toward the hangar’s ceiling, as though EDI were watching him from that vantage point.  “We’re using the shuttle for the time being.  Send Garrus and Legion down to the shuttle bay.  Now.”

When Tali disembarked from the shuttle, following immediately after Koris, Shepard cocked an eyebrow at her back.

“Tali, don’t go anywhere,” he said, the pitch of his voice deepening slightly.

Tali turned around, causing Koris to halt in confusion a few paces ahead.

“I should really go see Raan about getting in contact with the Fleet,” she replied.

Shepard shook his head.  “No, I need you here.”

“Shepard, these are my people,” she protested, lifting a hand to mid-chest level as if to push him away.

“You can help your people by coming with me to disable this geth server.”

Koris took a single step toward Shepard and offered a more placating gesture.  “I appreciate your fervor, Shepard,” he started, “but perhaps—”

“Tali, I need you for this,” Shepard interjected, never taking his eyes off her, never granting the other admiral a second look.

Tali glanced at Koris, then turned toward the commander once more.  “Legion can help you on this one,” she said.  “I need to make my own decision here.  I’m sorry.”

Shepard heaved a sigh, watching as Koris’ helmet shifted with each glance back and forth between the two of them, the admiral’s silence as difficult as it was unpleasant.

“Damn it,” he muttered as he turned his gaze away.  When he caught sight of James, back facing him from his post at the bench on the other side of the hangar, he called out, “James, you’re up.”

James shifted on his feet before turning around to meet Shepard’s adamant glare.  “You got it,” he called back, and when he headed for the armor locker with no argument, Shepard unleashed a heavy sigh into the already-thick air of the bay.

Kaidan was midway through removing his armor plating when James reached the bench and began to rummage through the locker for his own gear.  He had heard far too much, and he had no inclination to keep quiet about it – perhaps one of the downsides of the lieutenant’s blunt nature, Kaidan thought.

“Hey, how did you manage to piss off Loco?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder with a curious upturn of his brow.

Kaidan shook his head and set aside the gauntlets he had just removed.  “I have no idea.”

To his surprise, James merely shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention back to the locker.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, a hint of indifference underlying his tone.  “He’ll come around.  He just seems tired.”

“That he does,” Kaidan replied.  “Good luck down there, Lieutenant.”

But when he allowed himself a moment to stop, to think, to observe, he watched Shepard’s heated discussion with his own omni-tool, his lips moving with fire but his voice subdued to the point where it seemed an internal monologue.  Tali folded her arms and ushered Koris away, and they both finally disappeared behind the lift door.  Every break in Shepard’s plan further unraveled the seams that held him together.  Shepard turned away from the lift, shut off his omni-tool, leaned against the side of the shuttle’s doorway, and brought an armored hand to his brow.

And when Shepard’s eyes flicked toward him in that moment, bridging the distance between them, Kaidan could clearly see guilt in the unfathomable depths of their dulled blue hue.


	7. Hope

_I never thought good news could sound so conflicted._

Upon Shepard’s return to the war room, Raan informed him that she had located the Reaper base on Rannoch.  With the short-range signal back in place, geth forces had begun to overwhelm the quarian Fleet, and the urgency of disabling the base became stifling, the recycled air in the war room heavy with an unspoken conflict until Legion pulled up a visualization of the Reaper code upgrades’ effect on the geth.

The upgrades had improved the geth.  They had made the geth individually intelligent.  They had provided life where there were only data processors and cooperative networks.

While Legion acknowledged that disabling the signal from the Reaper base would render the geth harmless to the quarian Fleet, it seemed reverent of the upgrades’ effect on improving the geth as a people all their own – if anything, it gave Legion a sense of hope of which it had never previously conceived.

For all the hesitation about the geth’s decision to ally with the Reapers, it had given them lives akin to those of their quarian creators.  Raan refused to discuss the geth’s history that drove them there or the fate of all those geth once the base was destroyed, and Legion stood there and debated itself until Shepard stepped forward.

“I witnessed their history, Admiral,” he said curtly.  “The Reapers sped up the process, but the geth were always moving this way.”

Maybe the geth could be spared.  Maybe these were lives he could save rather than sacrifice.

_Maybe there’s another option.  Maybe they don’t all have to die.  Maybe I didn’t fuck up._

Not that there was time to dwell on ‘what-ifs’ now: time was running short, as per usual.

Raan called it a ‘moot point’ until the Reaper base was disabled, and immediately moved on to details of the jamming towers surrounding the base and the laser guidance system that Xen had developed to counteract the interference.  With the _Normandy’s_ weapon systems synced to the laser guidance, the ship could launch a precision strike on whatever target Shepard managed to paint from the ground.  And when there was nothing left to say, when the conflict again settled into silent disagreement, Shepard afforded Raan a nod and began to circle around the room’s central console.

“EDI, patch me through to the bridge,” he said, tilting his gaze up when he reached the short staircase at the other end of the room.

After a few moments, Joker’s voice filtered out from above him: “What’s up, Commander?”

“Get us in orbit over the base and let me know when we’re good to drop the shuttle.”

“You got it.”

Shepard stopped where he was, one foot posted on the next stair up, and turned halfway toward Legion, who had always been surprisingly expressive for a geth – perhaps too much so.

“You sounded conflicted just then,” Shepard said, his voice low.

“We do not agree with the old machines’ purposes, but we find value in the growth their upgrades have given the geth,” it replied.  “We find it… beautiful.  But this has created conflict.”

“Conflict because of hope?”

Legion did not reply.  The faintest upturn at the corner of Shepard’s lip was all he could manage in response, and the lower plates on Legion’s head branched out slightly, as if returning the gesture.

“Delays will prove disadvantageous, Shepard-Commander,” Legion said.  “Assemble your ground team quickly.  We will accompany you to the base.”

Shepard motioned his head toward the door.  “Give me a minute to go to the Crew Deck.”

“We will remain here.”

He made his way to the lift with his next goal in mind.  He could have so easily asked EDI to call Garrus to the shuttle bay or sent word via omni-tool himself, but he had already made his decision, and he refused to change it mid-step.  And, more than that, he wanted to have this particular conversation in person.

When he arrived at the Crew Deck, he headed straight for the main battery at the opposite end, his strides long and focused, avoiding every possible distraction, though, with some subtle observation, it was quickly deemed unnecessary: the deck was nearly empty, with Chakwas seated at her post, visible only through the med bay window, and the mess hall entirely devoid of other crewmen.

He shrugged off the notion, waited for the door to the battery to open, and stepped inside, folding his arms when he saw Garrus look up from the console at which he had practically taken permanent residence.

“Garrus,” Shepard said, listening to the hiss of the door closing behind him and taking a few more steps toward him.  “I see you didn’t waste any time getting back to your post.”

Garrus stood up straight and adjusted his shoulders beneath his armor.  “What can I say?  I’m a creature of habit.”

“You planning on staying long?”

“Unless you have something better in mind,” Garrus replied.  “Perhaps some target practice?”

“That’s the plan.”

“That so?”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched as he watched that measured simulation of a grin creep over Shepard’s face.

“Say,” he started again, tilting his head slightly at seeing Shepard’s now surprised expression, “I ran into Kaidan on my way here.  He doesn’t seem to spend much time outside the Starboard Observation, but he was hanging around the mess like he was looking for someone.”

“And you don’t spend much time outside the battery, either, Garrus.”

“Ah, well, you’ve got me there.  But I’ve got plenty to do down here, so I’d say it’s time well spent.”

Shepard leaned against the console, the cross of his arms loosening only slightly.  “You know, if you’re running as many calibrations as you say you are and this thing still isn’t running within its control limits, I say we get a consultant in here to help you out.”

“Do that and I won’t drag your ass out of the fire next time.  I’ll let you burn to a crisp.”

“I know you would.”

Shepard glanced away, drifting toward the data screen at the other wall, and Garrus observed with a knowing expression.

“So, any idea who Kaidan was looking for?” Shepard prompted.

“No, but I did stop to chat for a bit,” Garrus answered, his brow plate rising slightly.

“Yeah?”

“Well, he seemed like he could’ve used an ear, but, actually, he didn’t say much beyond asking me questions.”

“How is he?”

Garrus turned his head slightly to the side, curious.  “What do you mean?”

“After the mission,” Shepard answered, but his next thought was an attempted explanation that only made it halfway there.  “He just faced a lot of geth on the dreadnought and Rannoch and…”

“Yeah, I got it,” Garrus replied, lifting one hand as an indication.  “You don’t think he’d enjoy the story of how your mind was overtaken by a hulking geth machine?  Not a lot of us would, by the way.  Good thing for us you’ve learned to not give a damn and just go for it.”

“Heh, well…”  _Not exactly._

Garrus shrugged his shoulders.  “He seemed well enough,” he said.  “Didn’t seem like being left off the mission affected him too much, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good to hear.”

“He looked a little… pale?  Is that what you would call that?”

The lines permanently embedded at the corners of Shepard’s eyes soon deepened.  “What was wrong with him?”

Garrus watched the contortions in Shepard’s expression for a moment before he answered.  “Just seemed a bit out of the ordinary, though it’s possible I could be wrong – that may have happened once or twice.  Something about your squishy complexions throws me off.”

Deciding that he would have to be satisfied with that answer, Shepard continued, “So what did he want to know?”

“He asked about the geth consensus,” Garrus said.  “I had to tell him I only knew what you told us on the shuttle ride back.”

“And?”

“He said he was going to be too distracted by thinking about how the consensus works to do his Spectre Division reports.”

Shepard cocked an eyebrow at that.  “What kind of Spectre business is he conducting from the _Normandy_ , anyway?”

“I asked that same question,” Garrus said, miming the motion with a slight rise in his brow plate.  “He said it’s more that he’s ‘a little behind.’”

“Ah.”

“Maybe you should teach him the art of bullshitting,” Garrus suggested.

“I’m pretty sure that’d be a bad idea,” came Shepard’s amused reply, accompanied by a tiny smirk that seemed so foreign to his face now.

“Yeah,” Garrus agreed, “they’d probably pick up on it pretty quickly.  He just doesn’t have it in him to be dishonest.”

When a moment of silence descended upon the room, Garrus looked away.

“So, you must have some reason for coming down here so soon,” he eventually began.  “You usually like to stew in your own juices for a bit before you make your rounds.”

Any remnant of Shepard’s grin soon faded.  “I wanted to talk about Rannoch.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s still there,” Garrus replied, finally turning his attention back toward the commander.  “Can’t say how much time it has left, though.”

“I know.  That’s why we’re heading out.”

“Already?”

“You’re on the ground team.”

“All right.”

“From what data I do have about the base, looks like there’s a lot of corridors and a lot of open spaces.”

“Okay.”

“Tali’s combat drones and I will keep geth off you while you snipe others from afar.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’ve also got the ability to overload shields to complement Tali’s energy drain.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you could handle close combat, too, if it comes to that.  We’ll try to avoid that as much as possible and keep it long-range.”

“Okay, Shepard.”

Shepard turned his head slightly.  “Something wrong?”

“Maybe I’m a little confused about why you feel the need to explain this to me,” Garrus answered, his mandibles extending a little further than was usual for his tone.  “You point the way, and I set my sights on it.  That’s always been the drill.  Seems to have worked pretty well so far.”

“Well, I wanted to make sure you were prepared for—”

“Shepard, go talk to Kaidan already.”

The charade had gone on long enough, and Garrus was tired of listening to Shepard tiptoe around the major’s name; it was a habit Garrus had seen too many times before.  Their entire conversation had been about Kaidan in some form or another, whether Shepard was conscious of it or not, but Garrus knew better than to think Shepard was that dense – this was his way of fishing for information, all while veiling it under his own justification for refusing to acknowledge it.

While methodical in his approach, there were simply some matters that could not be so easily skirted.

“What?”  Shepard nearly choked on the word as it erupted from his throat.

Garrus lightly shook his head.  “I didn’t get to be where I am by being blind or stupid, Shepard,” he said, turning his attention back to the console.  “I like to think you have better selection criteria for your team.  I heard about your little scene in the shuttle bay after the rescue mission.  Sounds like you lost your cool in front of the admiral.”

He picked his gaze up for a quick glance back, which lasted only a second at the most.

“And sounds like it was just because you didn’t want to take a certain biotic friend along on the next mission, for some damn reason or another.”

Shepard felt his brow furrowing.  “Who told you that?”

“If you have to know, it was Tali,” Garrus replied.  “We had a little chat down in the shuttle bay.  She looked like she was waiting to talk to you after we got back from the geth server, but when you left straight for the war room, well… she settled for me.  You upset her a bit, as well.”

“Shit.”

Garrus finally turned back toward him, tilting his head at an angle that signaled every incoming question that Shepard feared.

“So what did Kaidan do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He…”  Shepard’s words trailed off, and he swallowed what remnants lingered on the tip of his tongue.  But the thought remained, loitering in the back of his mind, refusing to be so easily suppressed.

_It’s not his fault._

Garrus again shook his head.  “I won’t press the issue, Shepard.  Whatever happened between you two is your business.  I’ve probably already said more than I should’ve.”

Then he hesitated on his next thought, continuing only when he had regained Shepard’s undivided attention – only when Shepard had been drawn up to the surface against his will.

“I’ll go with you to Rannoch if that’s what you want,” Garrus began, “but do us all a favor here.”

“And do what, exactly?”

“Pull your head out of your ass.”

Shepard heaved a sigh and replied, “Be in the shuttle bay in five and wait for word from Joker.”

And then he turned on his heel and proceeded through the door without another word.

He returned to the mess hall to find a few crewmen settling into the seats at the opposite end of the battery, and he made his way past them all, saying nothing but still responding to salutes with short nods of acknowledgement.  And when he reached the lift, away from every crewman’s gaze, away from every silent word he dreaded, he turned his head toward the door at the other end of the short passageway.

When the elevator door opened before him, he did not turn to face it.  He let it sit empty and headed for the Starboard Observation lounge, where the locking mechanism on the thick metal door glowed with a faint green hue.

For what felt like the first time in his life, Shepard swallowed his pride and went with his gut instinct.

The sections of the door slid open, and Shepard stepped into the darkness of the room.  The lights had been dimmed to the point where they were barely perceptible, leaving only the stars visible through the window, shining in the distance against the black canvas of space – and it was not nearly enough.

He glanced around for a moment, pausing at the datapad resting on the floor, an unfinished report still on its display, dimmed from prolonged neglect, and then he shuddered in his step when he finally found Kaidan, who was lying on his back lengthwise on the couch, eyes closed and brow tense and hands clasped together atop his stomach.  Even in the faintest light, his complexion appeared pale, as Garrus had said.

“Kaidan,” he said, his voice overtaking the sound of footfalls in his long strides toward the couch.  “What’s wrong?”

Kaidan stirred where he was but did not open his eyes.  “Ah…” he started, wincing through the initial movement, “I’ve got a bit of a headache.”

Shepard knelt at the front of the couch, leveling himself with Kaidan.  “Do you need to go see Chakwas?”

“No, it’ll settle down,” Kaidan said.  “This is way less intense than what I’m used to, but still, uh… forgive me for not standing up.”

Shepard felt a weak smile creep over his lips.  “No problem,” he replied.  “As you were, then.”

Kaidan managed a split-second chuckle under his breath.  “Thanks.”

“So, other than that, are you okay?”

“Yeah.  I’ve just been lying here, thinking.”

“Uh-oh.  All right, what about?”

“Too much, evidently.”  Kaidan brought his hands up to his head and rubbed his temples.  “Mostly about the geth and the quarians.  Tali said she begged the other admirals not to attack, but they did it anyway.  They forced the geth’s hand.  They drove the geth to the Reapers – so they could save themselves, you know?  If you trust the geth, I have to believe that they don’t want this fight.  I mean, why would they?”

“Legion was conflicted about the whole thing,” Shepard replied, his shoulders stiffening at the thought.  “The geth just want to live.”

Kaidan’s hands returned to his midriff, and he shifted against the cushion of the couch.  “The quarians, too,” he said, turning his head slightly in Shepard’s direction, arching his eyebrows to complement the motion.  “They all just want to protect their own people.  They all just want to live.”

Shepard tilted his head down, watching Kaidan with heavily-lidded eyes.  “Yeah.”

And when Kaidan opened his eyes, Shepard nearly winced at the sight: the way they shined in the faintest light, the way they reflected his own concerned expression back at him, the way they spoke volumes in the silence that settled between them.  Shepard fidgeted in his kneeling position, suddenly discomforted at the constant pressure on one leg, and then edged closer to the couch, deciding to ignore the ache in the knee pressed upon the cold metal deck.

“I came here to talk about Rannoch,” he said.

“You’re not taking me.”

Shepard fell into hesitation and immediately regretted it, but for his determination to then break the moment of pause, all he could manage to sputter out was a confused, “What?”

“I already knew that, Shepard,” Kaidan said, his eyes fixed forward as he began to turn onto his side for leverage.  “And it’s okay.  You’ve got your reasons.  Not sure I’d be much help right now, anyway.”  He moved his hands to the edge of the couch and began to push himself up.

There were words Shepard would never say, actions he would never commit, all of which suffocated him under the pressure of their weight, but he committed to the words he did say, to the actions he did take, with absolute certainty.  He bore every one as a badge of honor as he strove to find conviction amidst the chaos.  And Kaidan trusted Shepard with all of it.

But when Shepard reached forward, placed his hands on Kaidan’s shoulders, and gently helped him sit up against the back of the couch, Kaidan did not know what to think.  And, judging by the expression Shepard wore as he looked back at him, the commander did not know what to think, either.  It was a rare sight, and Kaidan would never know whether he was privileged or burdened to face it directly.

And the more Shepard stayed still, looking into Kaidan’s eyes from across the confining space between them, the longer he hesitated, unmoving, unflinching, grounded in the genuine light of their brown hue, honest despite everything.

_Shit…_

He lowered his hands and let them rest against the tops of his thighs.

“I’m sorry, Kaidan.”

Kaidan settled against the back of the couch, his hands falling together into his lap.  “Don’t be,” he said, a tiny smile threatening to stretch over his lips.  “You made your decision.  I can respect that.  Just do me a favor.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t shut me out completely.  Let me fight when you think I can be useful.”

An abrupt tightness in his chest nearly forced the remaining breath from his lungs, and Shepard shook his head and spoke, drawing out what air he had left.

“It’s not about being useful, Kaidan.”

“Then do me another favor.”

“What’s that?”

Kaidan’s gaze fell toward the floor, as though he could see through Shepard’s figure so uncomfortably kneeling before him.  “Be careful,” he said, his voice low and soft and weak.  “You’ve been running nonstop lately.”

“Yeah, well, I have a lot on my mind.”

That tone.  That was the tone Shepard reserved for unpleasant conversations, the political games he forced himself to play or the difficult missions that refused to follow his plans, and Kaidan’s eyes widened when he heard it.

“Is this about…?”  His words left him as quickly as they had entered his mind and demanded exit.

Shepard did not need to hear the rest.  He turned his gaze away, letting it fall to the floor like he had so many times before.

“Do you still feel, uh…”  _What is it, exactly?_

“Yeah,” Kaidan confessed, at which Shepard fixed his eyes on him as though he had given the wrong answer.  The ache against his temples throbbed more erratically with the shudder in his pulse, and he nearly whispered his next words: “I’m sorry.”

_I can’t wait this out.  I can’t will it away.  I can’t do shit…  He’s in love with me._

“Okay,” he said quickly, as though it would be enough to calm his own nerves.  “Okay.  It’s okay.  It’s— it’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not something I can just shut off, Shepard,” Kaidan immediately added, lightly raising a hand as a gesture of reassurance.  “Give me some time, and I’ll be fine.”

“We may not have much time left, Kaidan,” Shepard said.  “Could die tomorrow – or sooner.”

Kaidan nearly chuckled at that, but his initial response devolved into a sheepish smirk instead.  “Not likely,” he replied, the edges of his smile stretching slightly further at seeing the bewildered expression that then crossed Shepard’s face.  “You’re nowhere near done.  You’re going to see the end of this war.  You’re going to find a way.”

“Kaidan…”

Despite the softening creases at the corners of Shepard’s eyes and the appreciative tone of his voice, Kaidan nearly shuddered at the sound of his name, and he struggled to draw up any word of reply.

“Sorry,” he said again, the last remnants of his smile fading with the finality of the word.  “I gotta’ have some hope about our chances, or I don’t get much sleep.  Looks like you don’t get much sleep these days, either.”

“I don’t,” Shepard agreed, a single, small chuckle underscoring his words.  “Not nearly enough.”

The tiniest upturn of Kaidan’s lip was his reward for honesty.

“I meant what I said, though,” Kaidan said, glancing down at his lap for only a moment of pause.

His hands curled into fists atop his thighs, fingers brushing over the fabric of his uniform as he steadied himself to make another confession, one he would never know if Shepard wanted to hear or not, but one he judged that Shepard deserved to know.

“I’ve thought about it for a while now.  I don’t think my faith is misplaced – I can’t.  I have faith in you, Shepard… after everything.  You were right, we’ve been through a hell of a lot, and even more than that.  So, maybe it’s naïve, but it’s true: I have hope.”

Shepard knelt there, entirely still, merely watching the embarrassed flush that finally began to return some color to Kaidan’s face, so profoundly visible even in the dim light of the stars. 

 _You really don’t have it in you to be dishonest._ His hand curled into a fist at his side. _Fuck it, just ask – just go for it._

“So, do you have hope for…”

“For what?”

“For this?”

“What?”

“For…”— _fuck_ —“…us?”

“I’m working on it, Shepard.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Kaidan blinked through the throbbing ache in his skull.  “I don’t know.”

And Shepard watched him, serious and focused and determined, as though he were on a mission.

“Kaidan.”

It was so much firmer, so much more demanding, that Kaidan swallowed hard when he heard his name leave Shepard’s lips in that tone.

“You already made yourself clear,” Kaidan said, his hands twisting over themselves in his lap, attempting to draw his own attention away or otherwise drain the pulsing blood from his overactive brain.  “I should have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for you, but I don’t.”

 _No, there_ is _something I can do.  It could be so easy.  Just tell him the decision was already made.  Just tell him ‘no.’  Just walk away.  Just let him go._

Shepard moved up, lifted his hands to again grip the shoulder padding of Kaidan’s uniform, and stopped mere inches from him, taking in the sight of his sweat-dampened brow, his puzzled expression, his bewildered eyes that defied that darkness of the room and the vast blackness of space.

The way Kaidan’s eyebrows drew together, the way his eyes darted back and forth between the two so intently focused on him, the way his lower lip quivered with the fear and anticipation and confusion that all burned behind it in the unspoken words lingering on the tip of his tongue – Shepard watched them all, silent and stoic and yet breaking apart little by little beneath his own guise, his every word and action a protest against his every thought.

_Let him go._

“Because I’ve actually been unclear,” he said, his eyes fixed and his grip firm.  “So let me be clear now: your presence means a lot to me.”

“Huh?”

“Kaidan, I need you here.”

“O-Okay, Shepard.  Whatever you want.”

_What do I want?  I’m not thinking clearly.  Or I’m not thinking enough?  I should stop thinking.  I should think this through.  I should—_

“…go.”

“What was that?”

“I should go.  We’re probably near the base by now.  We’ll talk later, Kaidan.”

Shepard rose to his feet, keeping his hands planted on Kaidan’s shoulders, bracing themselves as well as weighing with the firm support Kaidan had never felt before, and then the commander’s blue eyes left him and flitted away toward the door.  And Kaidan watched the smooth action while swallowing the taste of guilt that welled up from the base of his throat, because—

Because he had lied.  He did have hope for them, however infinitesimally small it was, however irrational it was, and it still hurt more than it helped – and perhaps it would never help.

He respected Shepard’s decision.  He would do it: he would let go of the small bit of optimism he did have left, the tiny swell of hope that he had carefully carried upon his shoulders since Shepard had told him how strong he was to bear everything he did, and the release would be on good terms, like waking up from a pleasant dream.

But Shepard’s hand lingered on the shoulder padding of Kaidan’s uniform, fingertips trailing short lines over the material as he strode past him toward the door, and Kaidan felt a familiar sensation settle into place behind his ribcage.  And for all that it defied his rational judgment, it still felt right.

Maybe he would hold on to that hope for a little while longer.


	8. Pull

“Any word from Shepard?”

“No.  When Shepard has the target painted at the Reaper base, you will know.”

Joker shifted in his seat and began to fiddle with one of the toggles on the control panel before him, but he was mindful enough to ensure that he did not inadvertently activate it.  EDI’s synthetic platform remained seated in the copilot’s chair nearby, her legs outstretched as she leaned back against the chair.  The display in front of her had remained unchanged for a long while, as well, and the bridge fell into silence, settling into the fact that the _Normandy_ was essentially on standby until word from Shepard arrived.

The _Normandy_ hovered in orbit over Rannoch alongside much of the quarian Heavy Fleet.  Now that the main geth fighter squadrons had been removed from the equation, Gerrel had ordered a few ships from the Heavy Fleet to focus on the remaining nuisances while the majority maneuvered into orbit over the base.  Status updates from the ground team had become less frequent as the mission dragged on, and when all communications to the ships ceased, fear embedded itself within the silence.

And now all they could do was wait.

“Wanna’ get some cards up here or something?” Joker asked, turning partway towards EDI.  “Maybe get a few rounds of poker in?”

“That would be unwise.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to end up losing my shirt to the ship’s AI, of all people.”

With the sound of approaching footfalls against the metal deck, Joker turned in his seat and peered over his shoulder.

“Hey, Kaidan.  If you’re here because you got tired of the monotony of the Crew Deck, we don’t exactly have much more excitement up here.”

Kaidan leaned against the doorway and brought a hand to his temple.  He had lain in the dark stillness of the Starboard Observation lounge for what felt like hours, and eventually the familiar buzz of mission status updates had stopped filtering in through the door.  With his headache slowly dissipating into a mild discomfort behind the eyes as he had lain there, he had still felt the phantom touch of Shepard’s hands upon his shoulders.  But after however long the silence had endured with no news from the ground, the warm grasp had faded until he could no longer feel it, leaving in its wake the distinct feeling of dread.

Only uncertainty had filled the absence of that touch upon his shoulders, and it had been unbearable.  He had needed hope.  He had needed words.  He had needed to hear the absolute certainty in Shepard’s voice as he issued orders and strove toward his goal.

So he had headed up to the bridge to get them for himself.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Joker turned back to the control panel and again settled into his seat.  “We’re playing the waiting game now,” he said.  “That one’s always been my favorite.”

“No word from the ground team?” Kaidan pressed.

Joker cocked an eyebrow at the concerned tone that wafted about the air behind him.  “No, not yet,” he answered.  “You know, like I said.”

The display screen in front of EDI began to flash with a notification of the targeting system being activated from the ground, and Joker turned his head toward it with a sheepish grin.

“Oh, well, there you go.  Never mind.”

With a few adjustments to the figures on the display, EDI established the comm link and stated, “ _Normandy’s_ weapon systems are ready to sync to your target.  I recommend you withdraw to a safe distance.”

Kaidan’s eyes widened.  “It’s Shepard?” he asked, taking a step toward the pilot’s seat.

“Sounds like it,” Joker replied.

He readied his hands at the panel, drawing up each of the small panes that would serve to steer the _Normandy_ to the location EDI extracted from the laser guidance system’s output.  As the _Normandy_ reentered Rannoch’s atmosphere and the stars gave way to the planet’s gritty ground and rock formations, Kaidan braced himself with a hand on the headpiece of the pilot’s chair.

“Target locked,” EDI said.

The _Normandy_ swept through the sky above the base and fired two missiles into the central underground chamber.  As her thrusters reengaged and she sped into the atmosphere, the rattle of the explosion beneath her was drowned out by the sudden shout that rang out over the bridge’s comm link.

“ _Reaper_!”

Kaidan’s heart slammed against his ribcage.  “Joker!” he cried, but the pilot was already frantically moving displays on the control panel in front of him.

“We’re getting back up into orbit!”

“Shepard to Fleet!” came another call over the comm.  “It’s not a Reaper base!  It’s a live Reaper!  I need an orbital strike!”

Kaidan’s grip on the back of the chair tightened by the second.  “Wait, what the hell’s happening down there?”

“Don’t know,” Joker started, still hurrying through his motions to bring the _Normandy_ through the thinning atmosphere, “but let’s not stick around to find out!”

With the quarian Fleet at the ready, the _Normandy_ steered into position amongst the ships lined up in orbit over the base.  The semicircular outline of Rannoch sat still in the foreground of the scene visible through the _Normandy’s_ windows, with the darkness of space behind it, dotted by the occasional star – but it was not nearly enough.  There were no further words from the ground team – from Shepard – for what felt like an eternity, until the bridge again rattled with a demanding call.

“We’re clear!”  Shepard was alive.  “Fire at will!”

The Heavy Fleet began to unleash strike after strike from orbit, guns pointed vaguely toward the base, but the uncertainty that hung in the air of the _Normandy’s_ bridge was all too telling.  And when there was silence again, Kaidan released his grip on the pilot’s chair and began to pace the deck, watching, listening, hoping.

“What did we hit?” came a sudden question from Gerrel over the comm link.

“The firing chamber,” was Shepard’s response.  “Looks like a weak point when it’s priming.”

“Damn it, the jamming towers have us targeting manually,” Gerrel replied.  “We can’t make a precision shot!”

More silence weighed heavily in the air until Kaidan was nearly choking on it.  He could not be there, he could not see it with his own eyes, he could only feel the fear welling in his gut and the panic overtaking his every remaining rational thought.

“EDI, patch the quarians to the _Normandy’s_ weapons system.”  Finally, more words from Shepard, more of his voice breaching the silence of the bridge.  “I want the targeting laser synced up to the whole damn fleet!”

“Understood,” EDI said.

“Shepard to Fleet!  I’ll paint the weak spot.  Link up with the _Normandy_ and be ready to fire!”

And then the words Kaidan just heard finally settled into place, finally made sense, finally became stark, coherent sentences rather than merely the fleeting comfort of hearing Shepard’s voice.

He only regained awareness of himself when EDI spoke again.

“The destroyer is in range.  Missiles are ready for launch.”

A red beam suddenly bisected the black space visible from the _Normandy’s_ bridge windows and struck one of the Heavy Fleet’s cruisers, splitting its hull in two in a single strike.  Shrapnel and huge chunks of the severed hull drifted into space away from the explosion and collided with other ships.  Some debris struck the other ships with enough force to breach their hulls and depressurize their interiors, as those ships immediately stopped firing.  And Kaidan watched them all, the quiet of the bridge broken only when Joker’s voice pierced every death cry that would never be heard.

“Holy shit!” he shouted, and he immediately began to steer the ship into evasive maneuvers.  “That thing’s firing at the Fleet from the ground!”

“Shepard, we need a target!” Gerrel cried over the comm link.

More silence over the comm.  More silence against the backdrop of space.  Every strike from the Fleet was aimed based on hope and a good dose of forced recklessness, and the reward for that effort was a few more cruisers bursting at the seams in successive explosions.

“Shepard?” Gerrel called.  “Any damage?”

Kaidan held his breath, stopping in his motions in an attempt to find some semblance of peace in the long wait for Shepard’s voice.

“Negative!” Shepard finally called back, and Kaidan released his fear on a long exhale.  “The target’s only vulnerable when it’s shooting!”

Gerrel’s response came immediately: “Then let’s keep it shooting!”

Time spiraled out of control as quarian cruisers burst by the handful.  The _Normandy_ darted about the space between them, ensuring that the weapons system connection was maintained, but with such sustained losses, the Heavy Fleet’s strikes to the earth on Rannoch below them were growing fewer and further between.

And when Gerrel spoke again, his voice nearly quivered in defeat.

“We can’t take much more punishment…”

EDI made a few motions on the display screen before her, turning a few suspended holographic modules, but she said nothing, and Kaidan watched her from the corner of his eye.  When what was left of the Fleet began to align its weaponry and fire upon the planet in more coordinated strikes, the silence that then fell upon the bridge was deafening, and all Kaidan could hear was the thrum of his heartbeat against his eardrums.

The Reaper’s beams were no longer aimed at the quarian Fleet.  Kaidan’s pulse throbbed erratically against his temples at the sudden realization, and then every mental image – Shepard standing hopelessly up against a Reaper, Shepard struggling to maintain his aim through his tired eyes and shaky hand, Shepard collapsing under the fire of a Reaper beam – blurred together into a waking nightmare.

“Go back for him!” Kaidan shouted as he grabbed Joker’s shoulder with far more force than he had intended.

“What are you doing?” Joker snapped back at him.  He shrugged off Kaidan’s firm grasp and then batted away the hand that darted for the controls.  “Are you crazy?”

“He’s going to get himself killed standing up to that thing!”

“Get ahold of yourself!” Joker cried.  “I don’t like it, either, but we have to let Shepard handle it!”

Shepard always handled everything, never allowing others into the sanctuary of his own mindset, of his strive for control, of his own determination to accomplish his mission as he saw fit – and the galaxy itself was perfectly content to let him do so.  Every tiny glimpse that Kaidan had managed to obtain, every little piece of that breaking façade that he had seen, was distant now, lost in the stars, lost in the quiet stillness of space with the long wait, with no word from Shepard.  But how long would it be until he collapsed under the weight of the responsibility, the weight of the stars themselves?

Kaidan’s hands tightened into fists.  “Like hell—”

He knew he was losing control, and he could not stop himself.  The very notion was terrifying.

“Major, please step away from the flight controls,” EDI said, her platform’s eyes still fixed forward on the data screen before her.  “Shepard’s manual targeting efforts have proven successful.”

“You did it, Shepard,” Gerrel’s voice filtered out into the thick air of the bridge.  “The geth fleet has stopped firing.  They’re completely vulnerable.”

Silence over the comm link wafted about the room like a fog.

“This is Admiral Tali’Zorah,” came another sudden call, and Kaidan’s heart sank in his chest.  “All units, break off your attack.”

“Belay that order!” Gerrel snapped back.  “Continue the attack!”

For the utter lack of words in the bridge, the Heavy Fleet was visibly turning its attention to the remainder of the geth fleet, and cannon fire streaked across the blackness of space until there was finally another voice, another call to halt the attack – a voice that Kaidan had never before wanted so desperately to hear.

“All ships, this is Commander Shepard.  The Reaper is dead.  Stand down.”

“This is Admiral Tali’Zorah,” the other voice immediately followed.  “Shepard speaks with my authority.”

“And mine, as well,” Koris chimed in.

“Negative,” Gerrel argued, “we can win this war now.  Keep firing!”

Shepard’s voice filtered out from the comm link in an odd tone, somewhere between Commander Shepard and the man buried beneath.  “The geth are about to return to full strength,” he said, both a warning and a plea.  “If you keep attacking, they’ll wipe you out.  Your entire history is you trying to kill the geth.  You forced them to rebel.  You forced them to ally with the Reapers.  The geth don’t want to fight you.  If you can believe that for just one minute, this war will be over.  You have a choice.  Please… keelah se’lai.”

Kaidan stared through the bridge’s windows, eyes scouring the planet surface from so far away, and yet, with Shepard’s voice surrounding him, weighing so powerfully in the air like it had always done, there was no distance between them.  Shepard was standing beside him, breathing the same air, sharing the same thought, speaking the same words.

With the adrenaline fading from his veins, Kaidan’s fear yielded to hope.  “Shepard…”

And then Gerrel’s reluctant voice permeated the bridge, surrendering himself to Shepard’s words.  “All units, hold fire.”

And as reality settled in and the air began to thin around him, Kaidan slumped against the bulkhead near the doorway, drawing a hand up to his brow, feeling his own pulse against his fingertips, closing his eyes to the silence that again saturated the bridge until there was nothing more he could think or say or do.  In that moment, he simply existed.

He left the bridge without another word to Joker or EDI – pretending not to hear Joker’s mutter of “crap, I think he fractured something” – and he found himself seated at one of the mess hall’s tables on the opposite end of the main battery, his elbows drawn upon the tabletop and his hands cradling his head, suddenly weighed down by every word he could never say, every action he could never commit, every thought that he would never know.  And he sat there, willfully ignorant of the other crewmen that were finally filtering in from all corners of the ship, each one of them slowly calming down after the frantic evasive maneuvers the ship had pulled and the rattle of the bulkheads caused by nearby explosions.

Time passed much too slowly.  He was ashamed of himself for losing control.  He was horrified of his own desperation to hear Shepard’s voice.  And he suppressed it all until he could feel nothing, know nothing, remaining utterly lost in the depths of his own mind, lacking focus and control, until there was suddenly a clawed hand upon his shoulder.

“Kaidan.”  Garrus held his words until Kaidan picked his head up and looked confusedly at him, as though he had no concept of time left at all.  “If you’re looking for Shepard, he said he was headed for his cabin.”

Kaidan hesitated for only a moment.  “I’m not looking for him,” he eventually mumbled, and Garrus glared back at him, that knowing expression tainting his features.

“I see,” he replied.  He gestured his head toward the other end of the mess hall, and Kaidan followed him to the main battery.  When they were shielded behind the closed door, he continued, “Am I correct in assuming that you heard about Shepard’s little stunt on Rannoch?”

“I heard it over comm chatter on the bridge,” Kaidan said.

“That was a hell of a thing Shepard did down there.”

Kaidan shook his head and released a frustrated murmur.  “It was reckless.”

“Yes, it certainly was,” Garrus replied.  “But it got the job done.  Sometimes what seems like the worst option is the best strategy – when it works out, anyway.  Shepard made his choice and stuck with it.”

“It was the wrong one,” Kaidan muttered.

“Was it?”

“No… or, uh— I-I don’t know.”  Kaidan sighed, and Garrus simply stood there, waiting for him.  “He must’ve had a good reason.”

Garrus folded his arms and asked, “Do you remember how angry you were at him – well, at both of us, I suppose – on Horizon?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a hard decision for him.  And, well, it didn’t work out that time.”

Kaidan eyed him for a moment before he asked, “What are you saying?”

“I heard a human saying once, something like ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Good, I wasn’t sure if I had it right.”  Garrus hesitated, allowing himself a moment to properly frame his next thought.  “Let’s just say that Shepard has very good intentions.  He always has.  I firmly believe that.”

Kaidan’s omni-tool flashed, and his eyes flicked down the orange glow of the display overlapping his forearm.  After he received a subdued hum of approval from Garrus, he tapped the display and waited for the suspended screen to rise into the space between them, but it never did.  Shepard had opened a voice-only link, and he spoke immediately after the connection had been established.

“Kaidan.”

Kaidan waited for a moment, merely listening for any other indication, any fragment of sound, but if there actually were any more words intended for him, they had been lost somewhere in the short-range transmission.

“Shepard?”

The response was abrupt, but its inflection was impossible to decipher.

“Come up to my cabin.”

Kaidan turned his eyes up toward Garrus, who offered a meaningful look in return, and they again fell to his forearm when the transmission suddenly ended and the orange glow faded.  With another quick glance at Garrus, Kaidan swallowed hard, nodded once at him, and left.

The elevator ride was short and quiet, with nothing but the persistent sound of his own heartbeat resonating against his eardrums as he leaned against the wall opposite the lift controls.  When the door opened and he could see that the cabin door’s locking mechanism glowed green, he held his breath and stepped off the lift into the small area between the elevator and the sectional metal door.  He hesitated in front of the cabin door, a fisted hand drawn up and suspended halfway into a knock, and then let out a sigh, silently wishing that the dull ache behind his eyes would ease.

But Shepard had called him for a reason.  He had to have had a reason.  So Kaidan rapped on the door a few times and waited.

And the longer he stood there, the more questions rattled about in his brain.  He had taken half a step backward toward the lift in retreat when he finally heard the pneumatic hiss of the cabin door.

Shepard rubbed the side of his neck as he stood there.  “Sorry, I was… well, I was lying down.”

Kaidan turned fully toward him and straightened his posture.  His residual frustration and anger faded when he saw Shepard standing before him, dark circles underlining half-lidded eyes and deeply embedded lines more prominent than ever.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Tired,” Shepard answered, his hand drawing forward to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Kaidan offered a weak smile as consolation.  “Yeah, I bet.”

There was something about that idea – something about the image of Shepard lying there in his own exhaustion, eyes closed and lips parted and breaths shallow until he could no longer stand the silence and activated his omni-tool to call him – that made Kaidan’s chest tight.  But that same image deeply disturbed Shepard: his own willingness to reveal his weakness to Kaidan, his own unchecked desire to seek him out in his moments of exhaustion, his own need to hear his voice and see his face… his own defiance of every reason he had to _not_ do exactly what he had done.

After Rannoch, after all of his plans had fallen apart in his hands and left him with only the broken pieces of his resolve, he was tired.  No matter what he had achieved under those impossible circumstances, he had carved out a piece of himself to accomplish it, and even now the cracks were steadily growing, expanding in chaotic lines, embedding weak points that spread from stem to stern.

He took a couple of steps back and gestured somewhere between the desk and the short staircase nearby.  When Kaidan entered the room, he waited for the door to close behind him and then allowed himself a moment to observe.

The fish tank embedded the port side wall brought a faint blue hue to even the furthest edges of the room, and the tank itself had many colorful inhabitants swimming in irregular lines, back and forth, over and over.  On the shelf near the washroom entryway was a glass container, lined with roughage, housing a tiny hamster that occasionally peeked out from its plastic makeshift home.  Scaling the walls over two ends of the corner desk were large glass display cases, behind which were many model ships, each painstakingly crafted with the sort of attention to detail in which Shepard had always prided himself.

So many traits unique to him, so many details of his life that Kaidan had never known – so much more to appreciate in his commander and friend and…

Kaidan hesitated.  Stepping foot into the cabin for the first time had brought about an odd feeling that settled low in his stomach, as though he were intruding on Shepard’s most intimate space, the only corner of the ship in which he would let himself unwind.  And yet, datapads littered every surface of the desk and the private terminal flashed with every intervallic demand for Shepard’s attention.  It was also a room in which the cold, recycled air was thick with the burden of duty and the frustration of responsibility.

Still, Shepard had called him up to the sanctuary of his cabin – however accurate that term was in itself – and that had to mean something.  He just did not know what, exactly.

Shepard leaned against the cold glass of the fish tank and folded his arms.  “I wanted to talk for a bit,” he said.

Kaidan stood still and watched him: the blue hue of the tank backlighting the stitches in the fabric of his uniform, the lights overhead underscoring the tired creases beneath his eyes, the firm line of his lips blocking every unspoken word.

“What’s on your mind?” he finally asked.

“Everything.”  Shepard shook his head and nearly slurred his next words.  “Rannoch, the quarians, the geth, the Reapers.  Damn near everything.”

Kaidan arched an eyebrow.  “Speaking of which, that was quite the speech you gave down there.”

“I had been thinking about our chat, too, and I may have drawn a little inspiration from it.”

“I noticed.”

“It fell apart, though – the mission, I mean.”  Shepard looked away, lost in a thought that he had never wanted to face.  “I didn’t plan on there being a goddamn Reaper.  It started firing up at the Fleet, and I couldn’t stop it from—”

Kaidan winced.  “Maybe there’s bound to be some things beyond your control, Shepard.”  He knew that as well as anyone would.

“Yeah, I get that,” Shepard replied.  “But there shouldn’t be, not for this.  So much lost.”

Kaidan turned his head toward the tank and watched the fish swimming so peacefully just behind the two of them, then glanced at the model ships that Shepard had so meticulously crafted with his own hands, each the fruit of a labor of great dedication and skill and even enjoyment.  There was so much life in this room, and all Shepard could focus on was death.

“And so much gained, too,” Kaidan countered.

“We lost Legion and a chunk of the Fleet.”

“And we gained a home world for the geth and quarians.”

“Is that how you see it?”

“I could hear it pretty loud and clear.”

Shepard’s hard glare finally softened.  _Because you weren’t there to see it…_

“Yeah,” he said.  It was a rueful whisper masquerading as a murmur of agreement.

“You’re doing all you can, Shepard.”

_Am I?  Fuck, I can’t – I won’t—_

“By the way,” he started, his tone hinting at desperation to change the subject, “you’re taking this whole thing surprisingly well.  You’re not pissed off about the Reaper?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kaidan replied.  “I’m sort of pissed, yeah.”

“Only ‘sort of’?  I’m calling bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say, Shepard?  What good is getting angry going to do?  I wish you’d be more careful, but maybe it’s just that: a wish.”

They had both always needed control in their lives, each for his own reasons, and each without a perfect understanding of the other’s intentions.  Kaidan shook his head and, almost as if in surrender, he released a breathy half-laugh, a husky sound that spilled over into the air between them.

“I mean, don’t think that I don’t respect everything you do,” he continued.  “You get the job done.  You have to.  You take on the impossible, and you give people focus and vision and… and hope.”

The blue glow of the fish tank highlighted the angles of his face and colored the shine of his eyes, but it also accented the worry lines embedded in his brow and at the corners of his eyes in the worst possible way.

“But sometimes you scare the hell out of me, Shepard.”

Shepard uncrossed his arms and let his back press more firmly against the cold glass.  Adrenaline would always drown out exhaustion.  It was the most basic of human traits: the fight-or-flight response that was born into men as instinct and preserved by circumstance.  And when the fight was over and the plans were put to rest, there was never anything to do but wait – in silence, in fear, in anticipation and longing and solitude.  Time between missions stretched into restless eternity.  And when the fatigue inevitably set in, Shepard always powered through it and never looked back.

But hearing Kaidan’s voice, seeing the matured lines on his face grow and shrink as he smiled through his shaky words, slowed the axial rotation of planets and the passage of time itself, every star shining through the window a little brighter upon them standing there, together, in stationary orbit.  There, Shepard could breathe, he could see clearly, he could feel the pulse of his heart without the complementary thrum of adrenaline coursing through his veins.  There, he could simply stand still.

_Sometimes you scare the hell out of me, too, Kaidan._

“I do these things for all the right reasons,” he said.

“I know you have good intentions, Shepard,” Kaidan replied, the creases at the corners of his eyes diminishing only slightly.  “Sometimes, though, it’s not always clear who pays the consequences.”

“You, you mean.”

“I’m not questioning any decision you’ve made,” Kaidan said, wincing at his own half-truth, “I just, uh… I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

_I do know that.  And I’m sorry._

They had been drawn together, each pulled by his individual search for the other’s voice.  And there was too much to say, too much to know, too much for either one to bear upon his own shoulders.  What little space remained between them was the only remaining barrier, and Shepard edged closer, defying that constraint as another obstacle on his mission, only to halt halfway there, pulled in the opposite direction by the sole remaining whisper that lingered in the back of his mind, drowning out every other sound until he could hear nothing else, nothing but—

_Why?_

So he took hold of Kaidan’s upper arm in defiance of that uninvited thought, fingers curling gently around the exposed skin under the bunched sleeve of his uniform, and endeavored to keep his expression as stoic as possible as he said his next words.

“You mean a lot to me.”

_What the hell am I doing?  I shouldn’t say that to him._

“We make a good team,” Kaidan replied.

_We’re more than that, but we shouldn’t be._

“No,” Shepard said, tone firm.  “Not just your presence.  Not just your skills as a soldier.”

His grip grew marginally tighter, and Kaidan’s eyes flicked to the side for only a moment of hesitation.

“You,” Shepard added, at which those brown eyes returned to him, struggling to refocus, as though they had seen a ghost.  “You mean a lot.  Just know that.”

_There’s so much that shouldn’t be.  There’s been so much death already, so much uncertainty, so much silence._

Whatever Kaidan may have thought or felt just then was impossible to know – it was buried beneath the concern that stained his features.  “You okay?” he asked.

_I’m so tired—_

“Don’t die on me now,” Shepard said.  His voice was cracking, his words were unsteady, his grip was growing weaker.  “Not after Virmire, not after Mars, not after the coup attempt.”

_I’m so tired of thinking._

“There’s still a long road ahead of us, Shepard.  I’m not going anywhere.”

_But I have to._

Shepard let his hand fall to his side.  He swallowed hard amidst the stark quiet that pursued Kaidan’s final words, and he opened his mouth, only to stutter on a broken thought and then heave a sigh in surrender.  The whispered voice in the back of his mind grew louder, telling him that he had made a mistake, that his good intentions would end with silence like so many other failed plans, and he turned partway on one heel and crossed his arms once more, guarding himself from Kaidan’s eyes and voice and heart.

He conceded to that thought.  No matter how much he hated it at that moment, it was right.

It had always been right.

“You should probably go,” he finally said.

Kaidan merely watched him for a moment: how his weight shifted between his feet, how his gaze fell to the floor and then lifted to the ceiling and then careened toward the fish tank, how his fingertips twitched against the skin of crossed arms.  He could no longer stand still, not without a grounding touch against his hand or a stable gaze set upon his eyes.

“Shepard…”

“I’m fine,” he said.  “I’m— I’m going to lie down for a bit.”

Kaidan’s eyes softened, and Shepard nearly shuddered at the sight.

“Okay, Shepard,” he said, finally managing a weak smile.  “Get some rest.”

He watched Kaidan go.  He turned away from the door.  He let himself sink against the glass.  And then he closed his eyes to the ambient hum of the aquarium VI, the only remaining sound in the entirety of the cabin.

He was too tired to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in the game, if you wait too long to target the Reaper and hit it with that first strike, it continues to fire up at the Fleet in orbit until Gerrel says that he’s losing his ships. If you screw around even longer, you apparently lose all the ships, since you then get a “Critical Mission Failure” screen. I may or may not have found that out the hard way… :(


	9. Truth

It started with a lie.

Before the _Normandy_ left Rannoch’s orbit, he told Kaidan that he would rest, but instead Shepard wandered the ship in an effort to shake off the dregs of his own exhaustion, silently hoping that other familiar faces and words would ease his unsettled nerves or give him some reason – any reason – to take on some new mission, to set some new goal, to strive for control the only way he knew how.

When EDI’s voice suddenly rattled him out of his own mind and informed him that the asari councilor was waiting to speak with him on vid comm, he went immediately.

His joints were aching.  His muscles were sore.  His eyes were stinging.  But he stood there bearing as much concentration as he could manage while he listened to the councilor make her request for his assistance.  Not that Tevos delved into her petition straightaway – she had plenty of compliments about ending the geth-quarian war to throw at him first – but the attempt was well thought out, even calculated to the last detail, and her appeal that he return to the Citadel to discuss a private matter ended up sounding like a humble request and not like a demand for the services of the man whom the galaxy had so resourcefully labeled its only remaining hope.

Had he not been struggling to keep his eyes open, he would have been impressed.

By the time he again reached his cabin, he had lost his concept of time itself.  He had a new heading, but that thought – of returning to the Citadel, of facing shady political games, of adding yet another burden onto his shoulders – had done nothing to ease his fatigue, and it persisted despite his initial confidence that the mission would then grant him some control.

He let himself sink into his bed and watched the stars through the overhead window, blueshift emissions tracing around their faint outlines, swirling in hazy patterns against black space.  And as his mind wandered, his brow furrowed, deepening the already-profound creases between his eyes.

He had never been in control.  When the mission took precedence over all else, he was simply a vessel for calculating moves, taking risks, accomplishing goals.  But none of them were his.  They never had been.  His person was but the incidental shadow cast by the legend that preceded him.

And then the pang in his stomach was retribution for daring to think that his heart should ever amount to the same magnitude as his duty.

He closed his eyes and let the stars take him away.

When he again woke, he changed his mind and issued new orders to set the _Normandy’s_ heading for Noveria.  There was a Cerberus base on the planet that he had been willfully ignoring for far too long, and with the Horsehead Nebula being only a mass relay jump off course from the Citadel, he reasoned through it well enough: it was not a detour, not by a longshot.

Another mission, another approach to the matter at hand.

Hackett had stated that one of his regiments was seeking to seize the Cerberus fighter squadron facility, but the facility’s air defenses were too great for a frontal assault; the _Normandy_ could stealthily drop a ground team, go through the back, and bring down defenses so Hackett’s team could send in troops.  And when the shuttle dropped and landed at an unguarded platform at the rear of the facility, the freezing air that swept through the shuttle when the door opened burned Shepard’s flesh and stung his eyes.

Initial defenses were sporadic – they truly did have the element of surprise – but when Steve’s voice filtered out of the communicator in his ear to inform him that he had been flushed from cover and that he would retreat to the minimum safe distance, Shepard bit his cold lip and looked at Kaidan.

Kaidan stood there before the security panel, omni-tool activated, its display endlessly scrolling with lines of data and figures that Shepard would never understand, and his eyes drifted back and forth between the panel and the orange display on his forearm over and over again – until he turned his head and looked back at Shepard.

“Outside communications have been cut off, Shepard,” he said.

“Just take down their defenses,” Shepard replied.  “We’ll worry about that later.”

Shouts rang out from around every corner of the back room that housed the security system.  Tali ducked behind a console and readied her shotgun while Shepard took a few steps back toward the rear wall, leveling his assault rifle at the gaping doorway at the other end of the room.  With the clamor of footfalls against the metal flooring filtering in from every direction, his finger rested uncomfortably against the trigger, but that was all it could do.  The wait, the unfocused sounds and the lack of targets, granted him nothing upon which he could set his sights.

Kaidan glanced back over his shoulder just in time to hear the staccato of gunfire erupt from the other end of the room and to see two Cerberus centurions storm through the open doorway near Shepard.  He opened his mouth to cry out to him, only to hear his unspoken words drowned by the fire of Tali’s shotgun.

While one centurion collapsed backward under the shotgun blast, Shepard fired upon the other with a steady stream.  But when he had to stop to eject a thermal clip, he ducked into a roll that barely managed to escape a new string of fire.

Cerberus engineers had set up two turrets on the platforms outside, one pointed through each of the open doorways, and soon the hail of gunfire was deafening.

Shepard knelt at Tali’s side behind the console just as she rose to her feet to unload another round into the remaining centurion, but she immediately cried out and collapsed against the console once more to dodge an incoming shot.  Shepard’s teeth sank further into his lip, the linear impression threateningly close to drawing blood.

_What’s taking so long?_

He stood up and fired at the centurion, his kinetic barrier fortunately strong enough to withstand the shots he received in return, but the impacts left him shaken just the same, and he again crouched behind the console.  Every heavy breath gave way to the hail of gunfire from the turrets, and soon more orders and shouts from Cerberus grunts began to waft about the air in disturbingly close quarters.

“Kaidan,” he started, his commanding tone more prominent than it had been in a long while, “hurry up—”

Shepard glanced at Kaidan, whose eyes were meeting his, whose worry and horror and every other precarious emotion were on full display in that moment, and the pulse of adrenaline within Shepard’s veins submitted to the numbness of shock.  Kaidan immediately turned his attention back to the console and fumbled with the data on his omni-tool, and something like anger finally began to well in the pit of Shepard’s stomach.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“Defense system deactivation prioritized,” came a mechanical voice from the security system’s VI.  “Awaiting shutdown command.”

Kaidan’s voice was too unnerved, too troubled when it left his lips.  “S-Shepard, need you to sync the shutdown from the command console,” he said.  His tone lacked the conviction that Shepard had wanted – had _expected_ – from him on this mission.

“Go,” Tali cried, “I’ll cover you!”

She rose from cover and fired at the turret until her shield was overwhelmed by the sheer firepower and she forced herself to again duck behind the console.  Shepard managed to double back to the security panel and then activated his omni-tool at the other display, not even granting Kaidan a glance when the screen blanked and the VI spoke again: “Defense system deactivated.  General order 7/7 triggered.  Establish contingency defenses _._ ”

He felt Kaidan’s eyes on him.

He heard the break in Kaidan’s kinetic barrier, and then the shout that erupted from his throat when he took another shot, and then the collapse of his body against the cold metal floor.

Shepard had never known that his heart could stop beating while his mind raced ahead without it, not until that moment of seeing Kaidan’s form kneeling on the floor, one gauntleted hand fruitlessly clutching the shorn joint in his armor and shredded undersuit at the other arm.  He darted for Kaidan, dragged him behind a half-wall, and looked him over.

Blood trailed down his right arm in steady branching streams, streaking his blue armor with lines tainted red, dripping from his gauntleted fingertips to leave tiny puddles on the floor at his side.  His face contorted with pain and he struggled to breathe through clenched teeth.  The wound was deep, punctured skin and shredded muscle fibers engulfed by every pulsing gush of blood.

And Shepard knelt there beside him, staring, eyes wide, lips tight, jaw gritted, and, despite the constant gunfire raining over their heads, piercing every corner of the room and obscuring every thought and every voice, he heard nothing at all.  He only saw death itself.

“Shepard!” Tali shouted, dragging him back into reality.

She peeked around the corner of the console to make use of an energy drain on one of the turrets, which then stuttered and ceased fire.  With her shield restored, she dialed up her omni-tool, stood up, and sabotaged the turret as quickly as she could manage.  The hail of gunfire began to spill the opposite direction, splitting Cerberus troopers’ armor and forcing them to the ground, until Tali finally unloaded another round into the turret and disabled it completely.

Shepard pulled up his omni-tool to dispense medi-gel as he heard the turret burst in the background.  And when Kaidan turned his head toward him, that painfully remorseful expression marring his face, Shepard turned away and stood up without another word.

“Manual defenses are being established at the landing pad, Shepard,” Tali said, finally picking off the last Cerberus engineer and peering through the wide doorway at the platforms outside.  With the sound of the nearby turret reloading, she again sank into cover behind the console and waited.

“Then that’s where we need to go,” he said.

Shepard tossed a grenade over the console and waited for the explosion, which left the last turret a pile of scrapped metal and another Cerberus trooper floored.  And, for the briefest unsettled moment, there was no gunfire, no shouts from enemy troops – only a quiet stillness that loomed overhead, threatening to bear down upon them all when they would least expect it.

“Shit—!” came a sudden yelp from Kaidan, and Shepard’s gaze darted back to him in an instant, giving him all of his attention in the rare moment of calm.

Kaidan had attempted to put up a biotic barrier to reinforce his armor, but it was too little, too late, and he had reopened his wound with the motion to trigger the field.  He staggered on his feet and his arm collapsed to his side, directing the barrel of his assault rifle at the ground.  Finally, Shepard seized the moment and grabbed his arm.

An uninhibited hiss of pain slipped from Kaidan’s mouth, and Shepard felt his jaw clench as he as activated his omni-tool and dispensed another dose of medi-gel.

Shepard’s eyes were on his, and Kaidan let his arm fall to his side, his hand loosely clutching the handle of the rifle, his finger twitching nervously against the trigger guard.

“Stay here.”

It was an order – a demand – but it was broken, shattered into too many syllables by the inscrutable tone of his voice.  And Kaidan winced when he heard it.

“Shepard, I can still—”

“Stay here, Kaidan.”

It was the right thing to do: leave him in the empty halls of the base until the outside platforms were clear of enemies.  Leave him behind to save him.

But Kaidan would not let it happen.  He followed Shepard and Tali outside, only to find himself dragged down behind a metal barrier as a few shots whizzed past.

Shepard glared at him, his chest heaving beneath his armor, his every breath fueled by adrenaline and something else that Kaidan would never know, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Kaidan—”

“Shepard, there’s a sniper up there!” Tali interjected.  “You’ll have to take the shot!”

He turned, balanced the barrel of his rifle on the edge of the barrier, lined up his sights, and felt his heart slam against his chest.  Kaidan was beside him, armor plating clanking against his with every unsteady motion to level his assault rifle at one of the troopers nearby.

“Kaidan, I told you to—”

Shepard took a shot to his kinetic barrier, and he immediately lowered his gun and ducked behind cover.  Breaths thick with frustration, he felt himself slipping into that feared hesitation, that moment of uncertainty that met his gaze in the drying streaks of blood upon Kaidan’s armor and in the twitch of Kaidan’s arm as he fired a few shots.

And after Shepard finally turned, lined up his sights, took the shot, and watched through the scope as the Cerberus sniper collapsed into a puddle of her own blood on the distant balcony, he settled against the barrier.  He closed his eyes to the cold and the quiet, and he breathed in the stench of blood and medi-gel to the point of nausea.  But Kaidan was there, kneeling beside him, broken just like all of his plans, just like everything else.

He shuddered beneath his armor.

Tali cautiously stood up and made her way toward them once the gunfire had ceased, but she hesitated when she saw Shepard sitting with his back up against the barrier, eyes clenched shut and jaw gritted as though he were the one who had taken the shot.

“Is he…?” she started, glancing at Kaidan.

Kaidan shook his head.  “Shepard?”

_Why can’t I just stop thinking?_

Shepard had never been in control.

Shepard needed him for the mission.  He needed him for the fight.  And he wanted everything Kaidan had to offer: his voice, his strength, his friendship – everything except for his love, that feeling that defied everything he had ever known to be right.

_Why do you mean so much to me?_

It was uncontrollable.  It was a complete unknown.  It was the rebellious little flutter of hope that Shepard had only ever seen in others and never in himself.  What faith Kaidan had in him, what respect he had in his commander and friend, what strength he had to bear the defeat of rejection and still find hope in the stars themselves would forever be marred by the sting of guilt.

_Why can’t I—_

Shepard’s eyes snapped open when he heard a fuzzy hail over his communicator.  Tali and Kaidan exchanged looks – one relieved and one utterly terrified – and waited for him to relay orders to Steve.

He said nothing further for the rest of the mission.  He was silent when the Atlas fell onto the landing pad.  He remained utterly impassive as the machine ruptured at the seams after enough gunfire and tech bursts.  And he clutched Kaidan’s uninjured arm to support him as they entered the shuttle and returned to the _Normandy_.

He led Kaidan to the med bay to let Chakwas do her work, and then he waited outside in the mess hall, ignoring the surprised looks and rushed salutes from the few crewmen that greeted him.  After Rannoch, after all the death and destruction, the calm on the deck seemed so artificial, and yet it was Kaidan’s voice in the back of his mind, reassuring and earnest, that made it feel real, all while Kaidan sat there on one of the infirmary beds as his arm was painfully stitched and dressed.

Had the shot been aimed a few inches to the left, Kaidan would not have had the luxury of sitting there, broken but alive.

The longer Shepard stood there, observing the procedure through the window, the more his stomach ached.  Kaidan’s face contorting with pain, Kaidan’s body spasming with every poke and prod, Kaidan’s forcibly subdued cries somehow still filtering out from behind the closed door – Shepard hated every one of them, every reminder of death and every fear of indecision.  It would have been so easy to think it was merely Kaidan having his back as a brother in arms, to label it ‘having each other’s sixes,’ but this pain – in Kaidan’s eyes, in Shepard’s chest – was for one unforgivable reason.

_This happened because I can’t—_

When the med bay door finally opened and Kaidan stepped out, bandages peeking out from beneath the bunched sleeve of his uniform, Shepard treaded across the hall and put a hand on his shoulder, but his grasp was so firm, so heated and yet undeniably tired, that Kaidan shuddered when he felt that touch.

_This has to stop._

“Starboard Observation,” he said, his voice just as firm, just as heated, and just as tired.  “Now.”

Kaidan stood as still as he could manage while Shepard’s hand slid from his shoulder, and he followed him to the Starboard Observation lounge.  Shepard waited for the door to close behind him and then turned on his heel with one smooth motion, arms folded and brow furrowed.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he snapped.

Kaidan flinched.  “I-I—”

“You _weren’t_ thinking,” Shepard answered for him.  “Care to explain what the fuck that was back there?”

Kaidan felt his eyebrows knitting together, but he swallowed hard and replied, “Yes, sir.”

“Cut the crap, Kaidan,” Shepard said.  “Speak freely.”

“I don’t see how anything I did was conduct unbecoming,” Kaidan muttered.

“You were reckless,” Shepard said, his tone reminiscent of Commander Shepard, not the man whose voice Kaidan needed to hear.  “I can’t have you losing your head in the middle of a fight.”

Kaidan nearly choked on his response.  “And facing a Reaper by yourself wasn’t reckless?”

“That’s different,” Shepard shot back.

“How so?”

“Scale.  Perspective.  Take your pick.”

Kaidan looked away.  “I don’t follow.”

“I needed the targeting laser to sync the quarian Fleet’s weapons up to the _Normandy’s_ systems,” Shepard said, uncrossing his arms and making a vague gesture as though it would emphasize his point.  “If I hadn’t made that choice, the Fleet would never have been able to make the precision strikes necessary to take down that Reaper from orbit.”

Kaidan finally looked back at him.  “And?”

“And it saved the rest of the Fleet.  It saved the _Normandy_.  It saved you.”

“So I can’t be reckless like you once in a while?”

“Not when you’re endangering yourself or the rest of the ground team with some stupid shit.”

Kaidan’s eyes widened.  “What?”

“You want to get killed by some random Cerberus grunt?” Shepard asked, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.  “Don’t you think that’s a little beneath you?  We have much bigger plans in motion.  I need you there for all of them.”  He hesitated on a long exhale, but the moment was neither calming nor thoughtful.  “You want to die?  Fine.  Go out in the blaze of glory you deserve, not because of some grunt’s lucky shot.”

Kaidan took a step forward, and Shepard nearly recoiled at the action.  Instead, he stood his ground and let Kaidan into his space, only to then regret it: the hurt in Kaidan’s eyes, the hoarseness of his voice, the expression on his face that refused to be cast aside as some failed mission.

“Why did you drag me in here?  Just to give me a bunch of shit?”

“I’m not trying to just ‘give you shit,’” Shepard said, willing his voice back into stability.  “I’m trying to get you to think before you act.”

“You don’t think I do that already?  I heard all that going on and I just—”  Kaidan cut himself short and heaved a sigh.  “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.  I know it wasn’t the time or place, but you want to stand there and tell me that I don’t think before I act?  Don’t you think I knew the danger?  But I did it anyway, because— because you’re my commander.  You’re my friend, Shepard.”

“God damn it, no.  Whatever this— this… whatever this is – it can’t get in the way.  I can’t have it cloud your judgment.  I can’t have it get you injured or worse.”

Kaidan finally took a step back, retreating from Shepard’s space and into his own.  The space between them was no longer confining; it was the width of the galaxy itself, just as it had been when Shepard had said those words on the Citadel, when he had clenched the heart that Kaidan had so carefully placed into his hands.

But the worst part was that his hope remained, wedged somewhere between his heart and his mind, never finding affirmation in either one.  He knew it was reckless to carry it with him even now, but it refused to burn out – not after Shepard had told him that he meant so much to him, not after he had been so forthcoming and honest, not after all the hell they had already been through.  Not after Shepard had fueled the fire with his own sliver of hope.

He wanted to trust Shepard with every decision.  He wanted to know that Shepard was merely overreacting to another frustrating break in his mission plan.  He wanted to believe that Shepard had his best interests at heart.  Garrus said that Shepard had always had good intentions, but this… this was wrong.

Kaidan let his gaze fall to the floor.  “I wish you’d be straight with me, Shepard.”

“What?” was the only response he received.

He looked up at Shepard directly.  “How do you think of me, exactly?”

“You’re…”  Shepard hesitated, his eyes darting back and forth until the thought dissipated completely.

“You want me off the ship?”

“No, not at all.”

“And I don’t want off the ship, either.”  Kaidan shook his head.  “Right now, I’m back on the _Normandy_ and fighting Cerberus and the Reapers.  That’s what I want, and I’m sure of it.  The only thing I can’t be sure of is what you want.”

His voice was so certain, so full of the conviction that Shepard had always wanted – always needed – and it stabbed at him like a knife.

“What do you want?”

The words _from me_ never left Kaidan’s mouth, but Shepard heard them quite clearly.  It was a question that had haunted him since he had left the Citadel that day.  And he still had no answer.

“I-I’m doing the right thing,” he finally choked out.

Kaidan stared back at him.  “So am I.”

He turned on his heel without another word.  He had no destination in mind, but he needed to go.  He needed to walk away, if only for a moment.  But he halted where he was when a firm hand grasped his forearm on the backswing.  He peered back over his shoulder to find Shepard staring back at him, eyes adamantly set in their decision and yet somehow still conflicted.

“Let me go.”  Kaidan’s sentence was punctuated by emphatic stops on each word.

But Shepard did not release him.  He could not – not when Kaidan was walking away from him like he did on Horizon, not when all Kaidan would carry with him back to his own solitary existence were anger and frustration, not when he could so clearly see the way the hopeful shine of his eyes dissipated into the darkness of space.

And then Kaidan’s gaze softened, his anger breaking down into a plea.

“Let me go, Shepard.”

Shepard stuttered on his words until only breaths left his lips, until only pain stung his eyes and made his chest tight, and his grip grew weaker amidst the ache of indecision.  With a rueful glance into his eyes, Kaidan drew his forearm from Shepard’s faltering grasp.  But then Shepard reached for it, grabbed Kaidan’s arm and dragged him back, pulling him with stark determination that surprised even himself.

But the look in Kaidan’s eyes was so much more than surprise.  They were inches apart.  Their breaths wafted about the collars of their uniforms in the narrowest spaces.  Callused fingers were wrapped tightly around his arm, and Kaidan swallowed hard even as the creases upon his brow deepened with confusion.  The way Shepard stared back at him was so foreign, so set in its resolve and yet remorseful for the same reason, but Shepard did not move, as though he realized the mistake of his action the instant he took it.

Shepard waited for a biotic flare and a punch to the gut, but they never came.  Instead, all he received was a concerned pair of eyes set so sincerely upon his own and a word drowned in the most muddled tone he had ever heard.

“Shepard—”

_This is all my fault._

Shepard took a step back, his hand quivering in the hold it refused to relinquish.

“I— I-I’m sorry.” It was all he could manage before he was again suffocating on his own words.

He ducked his head away, released his grasp, and left the room as quickly as he could, heart still pounding against his chest, throat still constricted by every trapped word, hands still twitching off their last nerve impulses.  When the door closed behind him and he was left with only the silence of the empty passageway before him, he could only hear one whisper from Kaidan.

_“Let me go, Shepard.”_

It was every unspoken word on Mars.  Every pained argument on Horizon.  Every guilty prayer on Virmire.  And his own voice echoed in the background of them all.

_…I can’t._

It ended with the truth.


	10. Memory

Shepard had far too much time to think.

He had attempted to sleep, but the enduring pain in his stomach made him uncomfortable and the pressure upon his chest forced his breaths to be shallow and unrewarding.  And as he lay there, watching the stars pass by the window overhead, his own quiet stillness was just as artificial as it had ever been.

He got up and grabbed one of the datapads that had been abandoned on his desk and slumped into the chair, letting his eyes wander aimlessly over the same unfinished report that had stared back at him between every mission since leaving the Citadel.  He thumbed through it, vaguely recognizing words or figures here and there, but the attempt was in vain: he was still thinking far too much.

With the _Normandy’s_ next destination slated for the Citadel, there was nothing to do but wait… and the wait was suffocating.

There was nothing to plan or calculate or measure.  There was only a vague span of time with nothing in it, a destination that would bring some unknown political mission, and a galaxy spiraling out of control in the background of it all.

And he had affronted the one person who cared about him more than anyone else in midst of all that chaos, the one man who had wanted so earnestly to bear some of the burden alongside him – to relieve him of the weight of the galaxy that crumbled about his shoulders.  He had seen the pain in Kaidan’s eyes and the deepened creases in his brow, and he had heard the sting of anger in his voice.

He thought of Horizon.

The shock on Kaidan’s face when he saw the red outlines of cybernetics engraved into Shepard’s skin.  The horror in Kaidan’s eyes when he realized the Alliance’s reports were correct.  The absolute agony in Kaidan’s voice when he told Shepard that he had turned his back on everything.  The painful determination in the set of Kaidan’s jaw and the furrow of his brow when he told Shepard to be careful and then walked away.

He thought of the aftermath.

The confusion embedded in Garrus’ eyes when he tried to decipher the horrified expression on Shepard’s face.  The talk that Garrus forced him to endure.  The knowing quirk of Garrus’ brow plate when he recognized something that he would never tell.  The valiant effort that Garrus made to get both of them so drunk that they would forget their own names, let alone Kaidan’s – and it worked… for a while.

On Horizon, Kaidan had walked away, and Shepard had let him go.

_Why can’t I now?  Why can’t I just let him go?_

Shepard scrolled through the display screen of his datapad until he reached the end of the report, forever halted mid-sentence in an aborted thought that meant nothing.  He blindly reached for one of the drawers in his desk and fished through it in an effort to find a protein bar, but the search was ultimately fruitless, and he retracted his hand with a frustrated murmur.  He lazily tossed the datapad onto the desk and rose to his feet.

Stepping off the elevator and onto the Crew Deck suddenly felt like an intrusion into hostile territory.  As he made his way to the mess at the other end, he found himself consciously avoiding the looks and salutes from the few crewmen there, and after he scoured the cabinet and found a protein bar, he turned on his heel to head back to his own space.

But he caught sight of a body sprawled out on one of the infirmary beds, visible through the med bay’s windows directly opposite.

_Oh, god.  Kaidan._

He should have walked away.  He should have returned to his cabin to try to rest or finish his report or simply do something else – anything else.  But he traversed the mess hall and waited for the door to open for him.

Chakwas looked up immediately.  “Commander,” she said, a weak smile growing upon her face, “I figured you were still resting up after Noveria.”

“Got all the rest that I could,” he replied.

“Well, you look like you could do well with some more.”

Shepard turned his eyes toward Kaidan, who lay there with his eyes shut, breaths shallow and hands clutching for purchase at his stomach – an all too familiar scenario.  His skin was pale, his brow was damp with sweat, his lips were pulled tight, and his forearms were trembling atop his midriff, fingers twitching in uncoordinated motions as though straining to reach for something.

“Is Kaidan all right?” he asked.  _What a stupid question._

“Another migraine,” Chakwas answered.  “He’s currently on hour fifteen.”

_Have I really been gone that long?_

Kaidan fidgeted on the bed, and Shepard felt a pang of guilt settle deep in his stomach.  He would never know if Kaidan was aware enough to hear him, but he did know that his presence would not help matters.  With a gesture of his head toward the door, Shepard waited for Chakwas to exit before he followed her out.

When the door closed behind him, Shepard asked, “Did he say anything about what might’ve caused this flare-up?”

“No,” Chakwas replied, tilting her head slightly, as if confused by the question.  “I can’t say that speculating does any good, though.  Unfortunately, L2s are quite prone to all sorts of horrendous afflictions.  All things considered, Kaidan’s been pretty lucky with just his migraines.”

_Does that man look lucky, god damn it?_

“By the way, Commander, how’s the dermal regeneration holding up?” Chakwas asked, and Shepard eyed her curiously until he concluded that she was keen on changing the subject.

He asked anyway.  “What brought that up?”

“Well, you’ve been under so much stress lately,” she replied.  “I can see that all over your face.  But what I don’t see are scars.  It looks like that synthetic protein overlay has been holding up nicely.  There’s been no evidence of your scarring returning?”

He remembered.  Some days after leaving Horizon, he had invested so many resources into upgrading the med bay’s facilities, far more than should have been necessary, but he wanted it: he wanted his scars gone, he wanted no evidence of his forced return to life, he wanted the horrified look on Kaidan’s face to disappear from his memory – but none of them were successful.  The scars remained, hidden beneath the artificial surface, embedded deeper than ever.

“No,” he finally said.

“Good to hear,” Chakwas replied.  “I suppose that huge investment was worth it, then; it certainly got nice results.  Perhaps Garrus would reconsider.”

Shepard noticed movement at the corner of his eye, and he felt a small quirk at the corner of his lip.  “Good timing,” he said.  “You can ask him yourself.”

Garrus slowed to a halt near Chakwas, his gaze darting back and forth between her and Shepard for a moment.  “If you’re going to ask me about the scars again, let me remind you that some women find them very attractive,” he said.

“How many that you’ve actually met?” Chakwas prompted.

“Well, I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.”

Chakwas afforded Garrus a smile and Shepard an approving nod before she stepped back into the med bay.  Shepard caught a glimpse of Kaidan as the door closed, and then his eyes quickly fell to the floor.

“I don’t think hiding what marks life has left on me would make me any more than what I am,” Garrus said, and Shepard picked his gaze up.

He folded his arms.  “What are you doing outside the battery?” he asked.

Garrus shrugged.  “Nature does call on occasion,” he said.  “How’s Kaidan look?”

“Like hell.”

“That’s better than ‘like death.’”

Shepard’s gaze again fell to the floor, his face marred by the regret that he no longer had the willpower to suppress beneath the stoic façade, and Garrus merely watched him.  Garrus had seen that expression once before.

 

* * *

 

_“Shepard, you okay?”_

_“Fine.”_

_There was a distinct expression of regret upon Shepard’s face, and despite his every obvious attempt to hide it, it never faded from his features.  The remainder of the shuttle ride was silent._

_When the shuttle docked in the_ Normandy’s _bay and the ground team disembarked, Shepard headed for his cabin; not that he said a word about it, but Garrus already knew.  So Garrus scoured the mess for bottles of liquor – including one bottle Chakwas gifted to him from her private stash – and went to Shepard’s cabin, where he found the commander restlessly pacing the deck like a caged animal._

_Garrus stood and observed, mandibles extended, and finally set the bottles in one of the rare expanses of free space on Shepard’s desk, the loud clatter causing Shepard to finally look up.  Shepard had not heard the door open.  He had not even seen Garrus enter the room.  Everything outside of his own impenetrable guilt and frustration and anger and regret was mere background noise._

_Shepard gazed at him like he was falling, letting himself fade into the darkness of space behind him, sinking further into the empty space between the stars, dwindling into obscurity as his body and soul careened toward death on the planet’s surface below.  His face contorted slightly, drawn between ordering Garrus to leave and surrendering to the fact that he loathed the very idea._

_He slumped into his desk chair and reached for one unlabeled bottle without a word._

_Garrus quickly snatched it away and said, “That one’s mine, actually.”_

_Initially Shepard’s brow furrowed, but it soon quirked.  “Oh, that’s right… your dextro thing.”_

_“I was born this way, I’m afraid,” Garrus replied, and he handed off another bottle, some sort of whiskey that had been hidden in the back of the pantry in the mess._

_Shepard wasted no time in uncapping it and taking a long swig.  Garrus wasted no time in getting to the matter at hand._

_“So, about Horizon…”_

_The bottle in Shepard’s hand lowered slowly from his lips, the base finally coming to rest against the top of his thigh, and his eyes drifted back and forth between two empty spaces on the opposite wall.  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he eventually muttered, and he again raised the bottle to his mouth._

_Garrus wedged a talon into the cork on his bottle of brandy.  “Yes, you do,” he said, the loud pop of the cork underscoring the last word._

_Shepard leveled a glare at him, but for all of its rooted frustration, it was defeatist at best._

_“Am I so easy to read?” he asked._

_“Not usually as much as you were on the shuttle,” Garrus answered._

_“I’ll have to work on that.”_

_“Please don’t.  We have enough trouble with the Collectors and everything else.  Don’t make me worry that you’re going to have a nervous breakdown out on the field somewhere.”_

_“With all this Cerberus bullshit,” Shepard muttered, chasing his last words with a few sips of whiskey._

_Garrus turned his head slightly.  “You’re doing what you have to.”_

_The whiskey bottle hit Shepard’s thigh with an odd sound.  “But is it— am I doing the right thing?”_

_“You don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do you?” Garrus asked._

_Shepard let his gaze fall to the floor.  “I just…”_

_“You’re doing more than anyone else,” Garrus said._

_“I’ve always done that,” Shepard replied.  “But I’ve always wanted it done right.”_

_“‘Right’ is a matter of perspective,” Garrus said, lifting the bottle of brandy in an exaggerated gesture.  “There were a lot of people who didn’t think Archangel was doing ‘right’ – granted, most of those people were bloodthirsty mercs – but I certainly did.”_

_“Do you regret it?”_

_“I regret getting myself cornered.  Other than that, no.”_

_“You know what you want,” Shepard said, a trace of a smile reaching his lips before he could stop it.  “That’s an admirable thing.”_

_Garrus shrugged his shoulders and said, “You have all the right reasons for working with Cerberus, given what’s been happening out there.  Too bad Kaidan couldn’t see that.”_

_Shepard flinched when he heard the name finally said out loud._

_“I didn’t even shake his hand,” he said, his voice so low that Garrus could barely distinguish it._

_Garrus watched him take another long drink, this time hastily and with abandon._

_“Maybe I want to believe I have good reasons,” Shepard began, “but what I said, what I did, what I didn’t say, what I didn’t do…”  The thought trailed off into another swig from the bottle, and Shepard set it aside after the strong taste had faded from his tongue and he had realized the bottle was empty._

_Garrus shook his head and handed him another one.  “He didn’t give you a chance to explain.”_

_Shepard uncapped the bottle, not bothering to read the label and not caring what type of alcohol it was, and downed a good third of it before he spoke again._

_“The way he looked at me, Garrus…”_

_“What about it?”_

_“When I told him he wasn’t listening to reason…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“I hated it.  It made me sick.  Why the hell did I say that?”_

_Garrus felt his mandibles extend slightly.  “Because he wasn’t listening to reason,” he answered._

_“But he had every reason not to listen to me,” Shepard said, his voice starting to crack under its own weight.  “It’s been two years and I didn’t—”_

_“You were dead, Shepard,” Garrus interjected.  “What were you supposed to do?”_

_Shepard’s hand was straining to hold on to the neck of the bottle, veins bulging at the knuckles and fingers twitching in a muddle of involuntary movements, all contradicting one another in speed and direction._

_“He called me a traitor,” he finally muttered._

_Garrus’ brow plate shifted in confusion.  “Not quite.”_

_“I’ve been called a lot of shit in my life, but that… that was the worst.”_

_“He didn’t actually come out and say that, Shepard.”_

_“He didn’t have to,” Shepard replied, and he took another hefty swig from the bottle and set it aside once it was empty._

_“He’s focused on Cerberus – too much so,” Garrus said.  “Perhaps his perspective is skewed?”_

_Shepard’s words were beginning to slur together, lazily stringing one sentence along into the next, no thought punctuating them, no mulling over choices.  “He’s right… this is all my fault.”_

_“Let’s not go there,” Garrus suggested._

_“I thought I had made the right decision,” Shepard said, his eyes downcast, his scarred cheeks straining with every forced movement of his lips as those words slipped from them.  “I mean, he had already moved on with his life, so why reopen old wounds, right?  But I didn’t say that.  I blamed him, and… and I pushed him away.  And I have never regretted anything as much as I did there, when I saw his face and I heard his voice and I… fuck.  Just— shit, I miss him.  It’s like I’m still a dead man.”_

_Garrus shifted his weight back and forth between his feet, watching Shepard with a knowing expression despite the fact that Shepard refused to look up to see it.  “So did you make the right decision after all?”_

_“I— I don’t know.”_

_“Well, let’s see if we can find the answer at the bottom of that bottle.”_

_Garrus leaned against the desk and began to drink, while Shepard reached for another bottle, settled against the back of his chair, and struggled with it, determined even in his alcohol-infused haze to power through every frustration and every unanswered question.  When he finally coerced enough coordination from his fingers to uncap the bottle of whiskey, he tossed the lid aside and threw it back, letting his body slump further into the chair and the back of his skull sink against the headrest._

_They drank in silence.  Garrus eventually glanced over the imperfect line of empty bottles now littering Shepard’s desk, made a vague gesture toward the door, and left to replenish his supply._

_He headed for the Crew Deck, only slightly unsteady on his feet, and stopped at the washroom, and then stopped at the small kitchen in the mess to have a chat with Gardner, and then stopped at the med bay for an ultimately fruitless request for another from Chakwas’ private stash – and, after far too long, he returned to the elevator with only one more stock._

_When the cabin door slid open and Garrus stepped inside, he nearly dropped the bottle._

_Shepard was slumped over on his desk, head resting sideways with his scarred cheek pressed into the top of his forearm, his eyes closed and his every breath shallow, perhaps having actually found some peace in the black oblivion of alcohol-induced sleep.  But the expression on his face was what gave Garrus pause._

_Shepard wore a drunkard’s fractured smile and a heartbroken man’s tearstained cheeks._

_Garrus set the bottle on Shepard’s desk, turned away, and left._

 

* * *

 

And Garrus never mentioned what he had seen.  Seeing Shepard standing as he did now, a broken man whose face was riddled with indecision and fear and guilt even in consciousness and sobriety, Garrus knew he would never have to.

He stood there, watching Shepard in the silence that suddenly permeated the mess hall, watching Shepard’s eyes remain fixed so intently upon the closed med bay door before him, watching Shepard’s jaw clench over shattered thoughts and chest heave with stuttering breaths, watching Shepard stare into the abyss with hopes of finding Kaidan somewhere deep within.

The cracks in the artifice were spreading further, unearthing the truth hidden beneath.

Shepard had never let him go.


	11. Apology

_“You and me?  Is that what you’re saying, Kaidan?”_

_“It feels right, doesn’t it?”_

_“Be nice to have someone to turn to when things get grim.  Someone to live for – maybe love.”_

_“Someone?”_

_“You, Kaidan.  Huh… it does.  It does feel right.  After all this time.  You and me.  I like that.  A lot.”_

_“And that… makes me so happy.”_

No matter how many times the scenario played out in his head, the image of the smile on Kaidan’s face never failed to stir an unusual sensation in Shepard’s chest, slowly constricting his lungs until his breaths were shallow and yet peaceful, as though he were asleep and drifting within some pleasant dream.

_Yeah.  That’s how it would’ve happened._

He scrolled through the unfinished report on his datapad, his hand idly flicking through the lines of text while his mind wandered away without it.  In the hazy purgatory between awareness and sleep, between the reality of relentless duty and the silent voices that whispered in his ear, he existed, a man – nothing more, nothing less – in every possible decision, in every outcome.  And it was both heaven and hell, trapped between two existences, between what could have been and what should have been.

He had been treading the road to hell for far too long.

Even as that whispered tone in the back of his mind warned him not to, he let the vision linger before his eyes: Kaidan’s smile, Kaidan's happiness, Kaidan's heart and soul bared to him in the purest image of what could have been.  Between every trivial line of text was a glimpse of meaning, of purpose – of every smile he would never see.

_I shouldn’t think about this…_

And yet, he continued to stare into the abyss at Kaidan’s smile, at the imaginary moment when he did not have to think, he only had to feel… and it felt right.

He finally set the datapad aside and leaned back in his desk chair, the creak in its hinges and the brush of its starchy fabric dragging him back to reality: cold, recycled air in a cabin that was entirely too stifling.  He was trapped.  He was frustrated.

He was alone.

_I have to see Kaidan.  I have to know he’s okay.  And that’s… okay.  Right?_

Shepard rose to his feet and headed for the door, and slowly life returned to the sleek surfaces and recycled air, in the pneumatic hiss of the door, in the slick sound of the lift’s metal doors sliding open, in the click of the panel display that would take him to the Crew Deck.  The doors slid open to greet him with the sight of the memorial wall, every haunting whisper etched into metal plates that cascaded down either side of it, and he turned away, ducking toward the med bay, only to stop mid-step when he heard an odd sound faintly emanating from the other end of the hall.

When he reached the end of the short passageway leading to the Starboard Observation lounge, there were muffled voices filtering out from between the metal sections of the door, and with a quirk of an eyebrow he entered the room.

“…If you can, EDI, that would be appreciated,” Kaidan said, leaning forward in his seat on the couch, resting his elbows on his thighs, holding his hands together in a loose clasp as though they carried a fragile thought, a fragile hope.

EDI’s voice emanated from the intercom at the opposite wall, and Kaidan kept his gaze fixed forward on the window, as though she were speaking to him from the stars beyond it.

“Searching for any mention of your recruits is not a complicated protocol, Major,” she said.

Shepard took a tentative step and then hesitated where he was.  Even from the odd angle, he could see the creases at the corner of Kaidan’s eye and the frown etched upon his face, and he finally took another step forward, breaching Kaidan’s peripheral vision, looking back at him when Kaidan turned his eyes away from the black abyss.

“Trying to find out what happened to your people?” Shepard asked.

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, his gaze again falling away, this time directed at the floor.  “EDI, make the scope galaxy-wide.  If I can find just one squad, they may lead me to the others.”

Shepard offered a weak smile, knowing that Kaidan would not see it. Still, if it was any consolation at all, no matter how small, it was not in vain.

“Good luck, Kaidan.”

To his surprise, Kaidan picked his gaze up, his eyes lacking their usual luster but genuine just the same.  “Thanks, Shepard,” he said.  “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I will establish the routine now.  EDI out.”

Kaidan’s hands released one another from their shared steady hold and he rose to his feet.  Shepard stood there and watched him turn partway on his heel.  He caught sight of Kaidan’s arm dressed with fresh bandages, and the portion that peeked out from beneath the folded sleeve of his uniform was still white and new.  But his eyes drifted up, seeking Kaidan’s face, scrutinizing it for anything he would put on display, but all that returned his gaze were Kaidan’s tired eyes and unsettled expression.

There was no smile on his face.

Even in his most private moments, Kaidan was concerned about others.  Even now, he carried his honor and integrity with him, every shackle about his wrists the burden he bore on behalf of his own nature, his own refusal to surrender to the galaxy that wore him down nonetheless.  In his valiant efforts to be a good man amidst the chaos, he cared far too much.  He was troubled.  He was afraid.

He was alone.

Shepard stepped forward, arms loosely folded, guarded but not threatening.  “You okay?” he asked.

The tiniest upturn of Kaidan’s lip could have brightened the room, could have defied the darkness of space and overcome the faint light of the stars behind him, and in his initial surprise at Shepard’s words, despite what thoughts may have been running rampant through his mind at the same time, Kaidan smiled.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.  “I’m glad EDI can help with this.”

Shepard let his arms fall to his sides.  There was no need to guard himself from the man standing before him.

“How’s your arm?”

“Good, all things considered,” Kaidan replied.  “I hardly feel where the wound was anymore.  Fortunately, Chakwas has spent a good chunk of her life patching up soldiers like us.”  He chuckled under his breath, and the sound made Shepard’s lip quirk at one corner, as well.  “Or maybe I’m hopped up on too many painkillers.”

“And your head?” Shepard asked.

The smile faded from Kaidan’s lips.

“You saw that.”  It was a question spoken so flatly that it was more of a statement.

Shepard glanced away for only a moment.  “Guess you didn’t know that I showed up.”

“No, I didn’t,” Kaidan said, voice low and somewhat humiliated.

“I hated to see you like that.”

“It wasn’t exactly fun for me, either.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

Kaidan rubbed the side of his neck – a nervous habit that Shepard had first seen during his days on board the _SR-1_ – and he turned his gaze away for a brief moment of contemplation, as though he needed time to think over his response.

“Dr. Chakwas didn’t say anything,” he finally said.

“Why would she?” Shepard prompted.

Kaidan shrugged.  “Well, I would’ve liked to know that you showed up.”

“I figured you were still pissed at me.”

“About that—”

“And I understand.”

“Huh?”

“It was a horrible situation, and I—”

Shepard cut himself short, silently mulling over every thought rattling about within his head.

_I thought the mission had been fucked up?  I didn’t want to see you bleed?  I was afraid you’d die?  Excuses._

“Hey, hold on a second,” Kaidan finally interjected, holding his hands up at mid-chest level in a halting gesture.  “Listen, Shepard.  I want to say sorry for everything I said after Noveria.”

Shepard eyed him for a moment, but in his hesitation, Kaidan’s words refused to settle into place – he would not let them.  “No need,” he said.  “I should be the one apologizing.”

“I made a mistake,” Kaidan said.

“We all make mistakes, Kaidan,” Shepard replied.  “You didn’t deserve the lecture.”

Kaidan let his hands fall to his sides.  “I shouldn’t have tried to walk out on you like that.  That was unprofessional.”

_‘Unprofessional,’ he says._

Shepard shook his head.  “I’m sorry I didn’t let you.”

The quirk of Kaidan’s eyebrow and the puzzled expression that came to mar his face brought an unwelcome disturbance to Shepard’s stomach, and he shifted his weight back and forth between his feet in an attempt to draw the sensation away.

“Did you want me to?” Kaidan asked.

“No, not at all,” Shepard said.  His tone was so sincere in its remorse that Kaidan swallowed his reply and waited for Shepard to continue.  “You have all the right reasons.  You’re asking all the right questions.  I’m sorry I haven’t given you a straight answer.”

And then the weak smile that spread over Kaidan’s lips was like a punch to the gut.

“It’s okay, Shepard—”

“No, it’s not,” he cut in, turning fully toward Kaidan.  “I can stand here and blame adrenaline or something else, but that would just be another lie.”

“Another?”

“Listen, Kaidan.  Just— please accept my apology.”

“Uh…”

“Right now, nothing would mean more to me than that.”

“Okay, Shepard.”

Shepard felt his eyebrows arch.  “So, just like that?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard scratched at the back of his neck.  “Yeah.”

“Then… yeah.”  Kaidan looked away, and Shepard lowered his arm to his side.  “Bury it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”  Kaidan looked up, and the expression that met Shepard’s eyes was impossible to decipher.  “I mean, there’s a war on, and I’d rather not spend our time together, you know—”

“Fighting each other.”

“Exactly.”

Time between missions was littered with restless uncertainty: the long wait always hit like a deadfall and then stretched into a dull ache that permeated every impatient moment.  Standing there with Kaidan in a rare moment of respite, only to have it tainted by unspoken words and the unfathomable distance between them, was worse, and Shepard swallowed hard amidst the silence that followed, wanting to hear Kaidan’s words, needing to know that the apology had truly been accepted.

“So… have we cleared the air?” he asked.

“I think so,” Kaidan said.  “I only have one more question for you, though.”

A coil tightened somewhere low in Shepard’s gut.  “Yeah?”

“How many times are we going to end up standing in this room and apologizing to each other?”

“As many times as I takes, I guess.”  _That’s not right._   “This will be the last time.  I promise.”

Kaidan tilted his head slightly, as though it were weighed down with an unstable thought.  “I hope so,” he finally said.

His eyes flicked toward the window, toward the emptiness of space that awaited them outside this clumsy moment in time – the space between stars, dark and vast and yet beautiful in the untold possibilities of a galaxy so huge, so immeasurable, and each expanse was both a promise and a warning of what could be and what should be.  When he turned his gaze back toward Shepard, he found the commander’s eyes to be fixed somewhere beyond the window, hardened by years of atrocious sights and untold terrors that had seeped out from those same dark corners of space.

But when Shepard looked back to Kaidan, his expression faltered, and the hard glare softened into a meaningful glance.  With a subdued quirk of the lip, Shepard shrugged his shoulders and put on display a face that said everything ahead of his words.  He wanted to change the subject.  He truly wanted to bury the argument and the pain.  And Kaidan let him.

“Hey, there’s always the next mission,” Shepard said.  “Make sure I don’t pull any stupid stunts.”

Kaidan cocked an eyebrow.  “If that’s an offer, then I’ll take it.”

“Good.”

“What’s up next, then?”

“The asari councilor contacted me,” Shepard answered.  “She wants me to go back to the Citadel so we could talk in person.  Some sensitive”—he highlighted the word with air quotes—“information has come up from the asari government that she didn’t feel like sharing over an unsecured channel.”

“So, what, I go with you to the Citadel?  How many stupid stunts can you pull there?  …Actually, don’t answer that.”

Shepard let out the breath he had been holding.  _The fucking Citadel._

“You know what, I have another idea,” he said.  “There was something else that came up a while ago.  There’s a fuel depot on Cyone that’s gone silent.  Word from Traynor’s report is that allied fleets in the area are running short on fuel.”

“Uh… the Silean Nebula’s a bit of a detour from the Citadel,” Kaidan said.

“It’s one mass relay jump away.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, well, politicians are always making me wait,” Shepard muttered.  “It’s only fair that I return the favor.”

“If you say so, Shepard.”

Shepard put on a half-smirk.  “Maybe I just wanted to see you in action again.”

“You’ll understand if I’m a little uneasy,” Kaidan replied, voice quiet.

“Yeah,” Shepard said, glancing away, letting himself acknowledge that some form of awkwardness would continue to linger in the air between them for a while longer.  “I thought you’d want back in the fight, though.”

Kaidan replied only after Shepard looked back at him.  “I do,” he said, his tone more resigned than he would have liked, “but not if it’s because you’re avoiding the Citadel for some reason.”

Shepard felt his jaw clench with the strain of keeping his words in check.  Had it been anyone other than Kaidan, he would have stayed silent, but he still trusted enough to share his candid opinion with him.  He deserved that much – and more.  Despite everything, despite himself and his own doubts and uncertainties, he trusted Kaidan, the constant in a sea of unknowns, the steady hand to reach out and pull him back to the surface when he was threatening to drown in it.

“The Citadel is exhausting, Kaidan,” he said.

Kaidan watched the tired creases in Shepard’s brow deepen with each word.  “How’s that?” he asked.

“The people, the politics, the nonsense,” Shepard answered, a gritty undertone to his voice that drew a frown to his lips.  “They put you in charge of the dirty work and then sit back and pretend that peace is possible.  So, you’ll understand if I’m a little reluctant to go back there just yet.”

“You know, when we were sitting there at Apollo’s, I believed it, too.”

“What?”

“That peace is possible,” Kaidan clarified.  “I mean, you sort of just brokered peace between the geth and quarians after three hundred years of war.”

Shepard huffed, “No thanks to the politicians.”

“No, but it was a hell of a feat in itself,” Kaidan said.  “Maybe they don’t thank you enough for it – or thank you at all, really – but, even now, you give people hope.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to say ‘to hell with it’ sometimes.”

Kaidan tilted his head down the slightest bit.  No wonder Shepard preferred the rush of the fight: it was straightforward, uncomplicated – get in, get out – so long as it stayed true to his plan.  There were no politics to wrestle with, no emotions to overcome, only adrenaline focusing his efforts and guiding his feet towards a clear goal.  It was a time when he had to neither think nor feel.

“You know,” he began, “thinking about everything that’s at stake here, if you didn't have any doubts at all, if you didn’t feel a little hopeless at times, well… I’d think you were crazy.  I get it – it’s hard to have integrity when it seems like everything’s going to hell.  Feels kinda’ pointless in that case.”

Shepard let his gaze fall the floor, and he shook his head.  “Sometimes, I just want to stop thinking about it altogether.”

“I understand that,” Kaidan said, “and I’ll be here while you figure it out.”  He fell into a pause, trapping his breath in his lungs, releasing it only when he saw the blue of Shepard’s eyes meet his own.  “I’m here for you.”

Shepard’s eyes softened.  “I know you are, Kaidan.”  _I’ve always known that._   “And thanks.”

And Shepard felt steady on his feet, artificial gravity holding him to the floor but some hopeful pull holding him together, mending every frayed seam, filling every empty space, completing every broken thought and stuttered word.  The darkness of space that waited outside the window – outside this moment, fractured and incomplete though it was – faded into the background of knowing Kaidan was there, standing at his side, breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts, pulled together by some unknown force that he could only conceptualize in daydreams as the galaxy spiraled out of control in harsh reality.  They were colleagues.  They were friends.

They were not alone.

“And,” Shepard began, hesitating for a long while on the single word, “I hope that when things get grim, I can turn to you.”

“Of course you can, Shepard,” he replied, immediate and steady.  “That…”

He let his eyes fall to the floor, but it was not shame or embarrassment concealing them behind the misdirected gaze.

“That would make me happy.”

That smile, just a tiny, hopeful upturn of the lip, was a glimpse of heaven.


	12. Hold

The last marauder had barely hit the ground when Shepard heard a panicked cry.

“Commander, we’re being overrun!” Riley called, her loud voice ringing out from the communicator in his ear and echoing within the confines of his helmet.  “Position indefensible – we’re not going to make it!”

He held a hand up to the side of his helmet, eyes darting about the metal floor near the main fuel reactor, and finally looked up at his squad: Garrus stood at his left, sniper rifle drawn and ready, while Kaidan stood at his right, assault rifle leveled at the reactor chamber’s door.  With a quick exhale into his helmet, he listened to the silence that then settled over the comm link, hearing only his own fading breath, knowing that the rare moment of calm for his squad was anything but quiet for Captain Riley at the other end of the station.

“Hold tight,” he finally said.  “One of my people is coming.”

Her response came immediately: “Roger that!”

Shepard’s decision was instantaneous.  He turned his head toward Garrus and made a vague motion in the direction of the broad staircase at the other side of the reactor chamber.

“Garrus, bring ’em home.”

Garrus turned away and called over his shoulder, “You got it.”

And then the reactor chamber door opened, and Shepard’s hand twitched against the trigger guard of his assault rifle.  Two marauders flanked a brute on either side, guns leveled at him, while the brute made its way toward him, every heavy footfall against the metal floor a resounding clank that penetrated his helmet and filled it with dread.

Kaidan took the first shot, aiming between the two marauders at the barrier engine planted on one of the interior walls of the chamber to rob the marauders of their advantage.  When it was disabled, he ducked behind a crate and peeked out from the side to see the marauders then take cover behind the edges of the large doorway.  His eyes darted for Shepard, who was retreating backward over the platform as the brute approached with its armored arm drawn up and its steps quickening.

“Shep—” he started, but the word caught in his throat when he saw Shepard back into a console and then shudder in place.

Shepard unloaded what rounds he could at the steadily approaching brute, but its armor plating was thick.  Shepard stumbled to the side, and the brute pursued him, changing the course of its heavy footfalls with a booming growl.  Kaidan darted out of cover to unleash a reave on the brute, his biotics flaring and his armor glowing to match the new blue hue that came to outline the brute’s hulking frame with the attack, and Shepard again lifted his rifle in time to see the brute turn away from him.

He held his breath as he stowed his assault rifle, drew his sniper rifle, and took aim at one of the marauders he could manage to snipe from that angle, and with a loud shot, it collapsed against the floor in the reactor chamber, its dismembered arm falling a few feet away from its body.  Shepard fell into cover behind one grimy console and then turned his eyes toward Kaidan, who was circling back around the other end of the platform, drawing the brute’s direction away.

But the blue glow began to fade from the brute’s body, and it reared up for a charge, lifting its clawed arm into position – and then Shepard took aim and shot it from the back, sinking a heavy round from his sniper rifle into its unshielded arm.  When he was suddenly hit with a few shots from the remaining marauder, his kinetic barrier faltered and broke, and he stumbled back into position, breaths ragged, pulse racing, and gaze rushing toward Kaidan.

He could see Kaidan’s eyes on him even through the narrow strip of glass in his helmet, focused and yet horrified.  The brute drew closer to him with every moment, and when his eyes flicked toward it, he found himself pulled by the arm and shoved down behind cover at a nearby raised platform, watching the brute turn its tremendous girth on two unsteady feet as Kaidan fired upon it.

Shepard knew the opportunity was brief.  He drew his rifle and sniped the other marauder, drawing blood from the hole in its chest, but after it stumbled backward a few feet and then steadied itself, he again fell behind cover.  With his shield restored, he reloaded the rifle and then stood up to take aim again.

With his sights set on the marauder, there was a sudden burst of assault rifle fire from the side, a hail of bright gunfire appearing from the black edges of the scope, and he lowered his weapon to watch from a distance as the marauder fell into a puddle of its own entrails.

_Kaidan._

He lifted himself onto the platform and switched out his sniper rifle for his shotgun, and then stumbled on his feet with the shake in the metal grating beneath him: the brute had charged at Kaidan, and he had managed to duck into a roll at the lower level.

Shepard unloaded a round into the brute’s back, and it staggered forward a few feet and then turned toward him, its low growl somehow filtering in through the seams in his helmet.  As he reloaded his shotgun, he took a few steps backward while the brute stalked toward him, and he looked up to find its clawed arm suspended in the air, ready to charge.  He stumbled, his back colliding with the console behind him, and then, from the confines of his helmet, he could only see the brute charging at him and he could only hear the frightened cry in his ear.

“Shepard!”

Kaidan darted for the commander and pulled him by the forearm, leaving the brute to swing its hulking arm down and crush the console.  He immediately released his hold and eased Shepard to the side to cast one last reave on the brute, which glowed with the blue flare and finally collapsed in a heap on the upper platform.

Shepard could hear his own heartbeat thrumming against his eardrums, echoing off the inner walls of his helmet, beating with an arrhythmic pace that nearly made him lightheaded.  With the final Reaper forces eliminated, he released a long breath, the warm air swirling about in the narrowest spaces and eliciting an uncomfortable sheen of sweat from his skin – but every unsteady pulse and uncomfortable swath of flesh was proof that he was alive.

Kaidan glanced over his shoulder, his biotic glow barely beginning to fade, his eyes slowly dulling from the complementary iridescent shine.

“You okay?” he asked.

Shepard wanted to laugh.

Instead, his eyes fell on the dead brute at the other end of the small platform: its mass was riddled with bullet holes and streaked with stale blood from individuals long corrupted – lives that had, quite literally, been sewn together and forced into indoctrinated subservience as tools of galaxy-wide genocide.  Its armor had been dented and peeled from its rotting flesh by gunfire, and its massive intestinal tract was exposed and leaking onto the floor, unknown fluid seeping from its ruptured innards and through the metal grating beneath.

_Goddamn abominations._

He swore he could smell the rotting Reaper blood and the machine grease and grime through his helmet.  When he finally heard another signal over his communicator, he brought a hand to the side of his helmet and listened.

“You’re clear for the moment, Commander,” came Steve’s voice.  “I can’t raise Captain Riley.”

Shepard’s eyes widened.  “What about Garrus?”

“Nothing, Commander,” Steve answered.  “No one’s answering my hails.  But I’m tracking some movement toward the pickup point.  Finalize the restart, then we can rendezvous there.”

“Will do.”

Shepard looked around the platform until it dawned on him: he needed the console that the brute had crushed in its attack.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered as he approached the console.

The data screens flickered and fizzled, and the wiring exposed by gouges in the metal casing sparked a few times until the screens blanked and the lights on the panel faded completely.  He did not have to see Kaidan’s face to know that he was mentally stumbling over his thoughts.

“S-Shepard…” Kaidan finally choked out, taking a few steps toward him.  “I—”

To his surprise, Shepard picked his gaze up and merely stared back at him, and Kaidan stopped himself there.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Shepard said.  “Let’s just get back to the loading bay.”

Shepard stowed his gun and turned away, and Kaidan followed him through the inactive reactor chamber and up the metal stairway at the other end.  They found Captain Riley, Corporal Nyrek, and Garrus waiting near the closed bay door, and Riley beamed behind her helmet as they approached.

“Commander, you saved our asses,” she said.  “My team is in your debt.”  Soon her voice fell low over the comm link, and she asked, “Why hasn’t the reactor come online?”

Shepard hesitated for a long while before he answered.  “There was an incident.”

“I see,” she said.  “I’ll contact Hackett and see if we can get a team in here to start working on it, but the delay might be…” 

With that thought trailing off into an unsettled quiet in his ear, Shepard noticed from the corner of his eye the subtle twitch of movement in Garrus’ helmet, as though he were straining to keep his mouth shut. 

“Well, at least this place is no longer infested with those damn things,” Riley finally added.  “Thank you, Commander.”

Shepard merely gestured toward the door and said, “Report back to the shuttles.”

With the teams going their separate ways and their transports leaving the fuel depot far behind, Shepard stood there, silent, in the back of the shuttle, holding on to one of the overhead bars for stability.  And Kaidan sat in one of the jump seats, leaning forward with his forearms over his thighs and his hands clasped together, his head lowered to the point where he could see nothing but the floor.

Shepard watched him.  _He’s ashamed of himself, like he knows he fucked up again._

With a gentle sway in the shuttle’s motion, Shepard wavered slightly on his feet, but Kaidan remained utterly still.

_But this wasn’t his fault._

“Kaidan.”

When Kaidan lifted his head, the look in his eyes was unfathomably deep.  Shepard winced and turned his head toward Garrus, whose helmet had a dark veneer that reflected all light, shielding his eyes from scrutiny.  And Shepard heaved a sigh into the confines of his own helmet.

_I’m lucky I can’t see Garrus’ face right now._

When the shuttle docked in the _Normandy’s_ bay and the team disembarked, Garrus was the first to head for the armor storage and remove his helmet and other plating for decontamination.  Midway through removing his armor, he heard Shepard say, “Kaidan, come with me for a minute.”

“Sure,” came Kaidan’s fractured response.

Garrus hesitated where he was, feigning an examination of a few new dents in one of his gauntlets, and listened for more words to filter in from over his shoulder, but they never came.  Eventually, he turned partway on one foot in time to watch Shepard and Kaidan, both now dressed down to their uniforms, heading for the lift at the other end of the bay.  And he watched, leering with a few involuntary twitches of his mandibles, as they disappeared behind the sliding metal door.

All Kaidan could hear was the ambient noise of the lift, every subtle sound of pressurized tubing and clicking displays, and he endeavored to keep his eyes fixed forward, impassive, at the closed door that trapped him within the relative quiet.  He glanced at Shepard through the corner of his eye, only to find him staring straight ahead, just as impassive as he was, at the control panel directly across from him.

When the door slid open and Shepard gestured toward it, Kaidan took a few steps out into the small area between the lift and the captain’s cabin door, silently pondering to himself if he should assume parade rest while he waited.  Shepard let the cabin door open for him, wandered inside, and then turned on his heel, the expectant expression plastered upon his face only easing after Kaidan followed him.

With the door shutting behind him, Shepard looked at him directly, and Kaidan swallowed hard and waited even longer, until he could no longer stand to look back at him.

“I get the feeling you want to talk to me about Cyone,” Kaidan finally said, voice quiet, eyes fixed on the fish tank behind Shepard.

Shepard shrugged his shoulders.  “I’m more interested in having you talk about it.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever’s on your mind.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Whatever you need to say.”

Kaidan’s brow knitted.  “Shepard—”

“I know this sounds ridiculous,” Shepard cut in, “but I mean it.  Say what you want to say.”

Kaidan’s gaze fell, his head hanging with shame and remorse and an unduly guilty conscience.  “I’m sorry, Shepard,” he said.

Shepard eyed him for a moment.  “Is that all?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

Kaidan picked his gaze up to meet Shepard’s.  “Should I go now?”

“No,” Shepard said quickly.  “Stay for a bit.  Stay for a while.”

The silence that then settled between them was entirely unpleasant, and Kaidan took in a deep breath of the thick air.  With Shepard’s eyes set so intently upon him, he did not know what to think or say or do, and he finally brought a hand up to rub the side of his neck, needing to make some gesture or at least seem like he had thought this through.

But ultimately his mental search came up empty.  “I’m, uh… kinda’ feeling a little stupid here, Shepard.”

Shepard tilted his head slightly to the side.  “You must have more on your mind.”

“Ah, well, yeah, I guess I do,” he said.  “I’m sorry about the mission, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes?”

“Okay.”

All Kaidan could manage in response was a confused, “Okay?”

“Kaidan,” Shepard finally said, and Kaidan’s heart sank at the unknowable tone of his voice, “let’s get something clear.  Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop.  It wasn’t your fault.”

Kaidan’s face was contradicting itself, both relief upturning his eyebrows and worry setting a frown at his lips.  “But the mission—”

“The mission failed,” Shepard interjected, a sort of grit to his voice that spoke of his own reluctance to say those words, “but it’ll be okay.  Riley got out alive, and _we_ got out alive… and Hackett will have a team in there to get the station back online soon enough.”

The lines between Kaidan’s eyes slowly began to ease.  “So, are you…?”

_Pissed off?  Absolutely.  But at you?  No._

“We do the best that we can,” Shepard said.  “Sometimes it’s done the right way, and sometimes shit happens.  But that’s all we can do.”

“That’s— yeah, you’re right.”

“And thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For what you did back there – for me, I mean.”

“Uh, no problem, Shepard,” he replied.  “We’re a team.  You and me— a-and Garrus.”

“Heh… yeah.  Well, I’m glad you said what you wanted.”

“I’m glad you let me.”

Shepard frowned with the sudden sinking feeling in his chest.  “I don’t normally?”

“No, not like that,” Kaidan said.  “I mean, I’m kinda’ relieved that you trust me after, you know… things went FUBAR.”

Shepard swallowed hard.  He recalled his reaction after Noveria with vivid detail, his frustration and anger focused upon pushing Kaidan away all while refusing to let him go, and he wore it like a fresh wound, still raw and tender.  And still Kaidan had placed faith in him even after that, even after Horizon, even after every decision he had ever regretted – even after every attempt to call his wrong decisions _right_.

“I’m sorry about that, Kaidan,” he said, turning his head down slightly.

“Yeah, no— I understand, really,” Kaidan said, holding his hands up in some sort of placating gesture.  “I’m just glad that we can be civil about it, you know?”

“It’s… nice.”

This moment – this quiet between them – was oddly peaceful.  The mission had failed, there were still Citadel politics threatening to collapse upon his shoulders, and the galaxy was being ravaged by forces so far beyond the scale of any little planetary or political assignment, but here, in this moment, he could look Kaidan in the eye and see genuine peace.

“Can I just— can I say something else?” Kaidan asked, and Shepard stirred slightly in his stance.

“Sure.”

“I’m glad we’re taking the time to talk about it at all,” Kaidan said.  “That means a lot.”

Shepard felt his lip curl at one corner.  “I wasn’t lying when I said that you mean a lot to me.”

The glimmer of hope in Kaidan’s eye became a bright light, and when he stepped forward to wrap his arms around him, Shepard went rigid in his hold, only shuddering off his last nerve impulses until he could stand utterly still.  He could not think.  He could only feel – the warmth of Kaidan’s cheek against his, the loose touch of Kaidan’s hands at his shoulder blades, the resounding beat of Kaidan’s heart that somehow penetrated every layer of their uniforms pressed so closely together. 

There was no space left between them.

“Kaidan…”

“O-Oh, shit,” Kaidan said, pulling himself back.  “I’m sorry, Shepard.”

With a shudder in his chest, feeling the phantom chill of the space newly bared between them, he quickly brought his hands up and slid them over Kaidan’s sides and under his arms to his shoulder blades, resting his palms flat against the padding of his uniform and sprawling his fingers out over the fabric exposed beneath.  Kaidan stood still for a moment, hands suspended halfway apart from Shepard’s shoulders, and finally let himself breathe, his uniform brushing against Shepard’s with each slowly deepening breath.  When he felt Kaidan’s hands again at his shoulder blades, Shepard just stood there, head on Kaidan’s shoulder, chin tilting down over the padding there, staring into nothing and still seeing the faint outline of Kaidan’s smile.

They had been pulled together by war, by the cruel realities of missions, by the restless moments between assignments that dragged time into an unfathomable length of uncertainty and fear – by the friendship that endured despite everything, by the flicker of light between them that had managed to spark in the blackest hours, by the hope that lingered in the darkest regions of space.

Only Kaidan would ever see him like this.  Only Kaidan would know his weaknesses and frustrations and fears.  The steady hands, the beating heart, and the warmth between them were every comforting thought and reassuring word that he had never previously known.  Shepard closed his eyes and breathed it in, felt it upon his skin and in his bones, and let it settle into place to soothe every whispered voice, allay every fear, breach every barrier… until his lungs were full, his heart was overflowing, and the whispered voice was finally beginning to filter out from the back of his mind.

_Don’t give him the wrong idea._

He let him go.  He watched Kaidan slip from his arms.  And then his heart stirred in his chest when he saw the genuine smile on Kaidan’s face, accented by the softest blue hue from the fish tank, every tiny wrinkle a little bit brighter with the upturn of his lips.

“Thanks for the talk, Shepard,” he said as he took a few steps past him.  “I’ll catch you later.”

“Yeah.”

Shepard stared at the deck before him.  When he heard the final pneumatic hiss of the door and the footfalls fade into some distant ambient hum, he shook his head.  He wanted to laugh, but all that escaped his lips was a humorless breath.

And yet, this time, when Kaidan walked away, there had been no regret.


	13. Miss

The instant he left Udina’s former office and Tevos’ voice faded into ambient noise, Shepard felt the weight of responsibility again bearing down upon his shoulders – and he had no armor to endure the brunt of it.

Tevos had revealed the location of a prothean artifact on Thessia, perhaps crucial to locating the Catalyst, and she had already ordered a scientific team to meet him there.  He had been entrusted with a mission already tainted by political secrecy.  He had been branded the only one capable of undertaking this task.  And she had told him, “Whether you know it or not, you’ve become the sole ray of hope in a very dark night.”

After that, he had to turn away and leave her.

It seemed like forever since he had last been to the Citadel for a purpose that did not amount to some political game or massive battle.  In fact, his last good memory of this station was of carving out some of his invaluable time to spend with Kaidan at that little café down in the Presidium Commons – once he let go of his suspicions, once he actually let himself enjoy the company – and yet, all he had done in the end was shut Kaidan down, watched as Kaidan forced a smile, and fought back the twinge of pain in his stomach.

Even though the _Normandy_ was docked at one of the spaceports further up on the Presidium, it seemed like some vast distance, some immense span of time and effort between the two of them: Shepard adding another one of the galaxy’s burdens to his already-precarious balancing act, and Kaidan remaining in his deliberate solitary confinement in the Starboard Observation lounge.

Some unknowable feeling in his gut – and perhaps he would never know what it truly was – urged him to the elevator that would take him to the Presidium Commons.  When the door closed before him, he pulled up his omni-tool, the orange glow coloring even the furthest corners of the small space and reflecting in the tiniest scratches in the metal, and scrolled through messages on the display, ignoring the unread ones and stopping only when he caught a glimpse of the simplest subject line in the list: _Dinner_.

He left his index finger hovering over the word on the display, looking down it as though it were a secret love letter, some heartfelt confession embedded within inarticulate words – and maybe it should have been – and finally shut off the omni-tool when the lift door opened.

The area was still scarred by the coup attempt, by broken advertisement screens, shattered glass barriers, and blackened and warped metal railings and walls.  And all were evidence of the hell this war had wreathed upon people, telling all too clearly of the lengths some individuals would go to in order to ensure survival at any cost.  And they all believed they were doing the right thing in the midst of this chaos – for themselves, for humanity, for the galaxy at large.

_“‘Right’ is a matter of perspective,” huh…_

From the balustrade lining the small sitting area near the bank at the upper level, Shepard could see the veranda of Apollo’s Café, which partially blocked his view of the courtyard below.  He leaned against the metal railing, still intact despite every unpleasant reminder of the coup attempt that littered the ground around it, and brought a hand up to the communicator in his ear.

After a few moments, the signal faltered and cut out, and his face contorted with disappointment.  He dialed another omni-tool frequency and waited.

“…Hey, Commander,” came the response.

“James,” he started, turning his head to watch the people loitering about the lower courtyard.  “Are you still on board the _Normandy_?”

“Yeah,” he answered.  “I know you usually give us a bit of shore leave when we dock at the Citadel, but, well, I’m a little short on spare credits this time around.”

Shepard grinned.  “You actually lose a round of poker last time?”

“Nah,” James replied, a mock-offended tone lining his voice.  “Come on, Loco… have a little faith.  I just figured that maybe I should grab something from the mess before I head out.”

“Because it’s still better than the culturally-rich Citadel fare?”

“Because it’s free.”

“Ah.  Good point.”

“So, you needed something?”

Shepard pulled himself away from the balustrade and stood up straight.  “I was wondering if you’d seen Kaidan around,” he said.  “I tried to comm him, but I couldn’t get through.”

“Yeah, actually,” James said, and Shepard held in the breath of relief that threatened to escape his lungs.  “He was hanging around here a little while ago.  Looked like he was waiting for something, but looked pretty excited about it.”

Shepard hesitated, lips slightly parted on forgotten words, until James’ voice interrupted him.

“Been a while since I saw Blue lookin’ like that,” he added.  “It suits him.”

Shepard arched an eyebrow.  “‘Blue’?”

“Yeah.  Blue.”

“…Uh-huh.  Well, thanks for the update.”

Shepard disconnected and let his arm fall to his side.  Whatever gut feeling had driven him to the Presidium Commons had faded into numbness, and he let it dissipate into obscurity with no protest, deciding that, at least while he was here, there was another matter to which he should attend.

He proceeded through the short passageway and down the stairs toward the Meridian Place Market, where Liara was waiting at a lower-level balcony, leaning forward on the railing with one foot planted behind the other and gazing out over the fractured beauty of the Presidium’s artificial landscape.

When he stopped at her side, she tilted her head slightly toward him and spoke before he could.

“Hello, Shepard.”  When she turned to face him properly, he caught the brief shock in her eyes.  “Oh, you’re not looking well.”

“I went to see the asari councilor,” he said as he pulled up the display on his omni-tool.  “She gave me these coordinates on Thessia.  We’re supposed to meet a team of scientists there, so that’s our next heading.”

Liara glanced through the display overlapping his forearm.  “These coordinates are for the Temple of Athame,” she said.  “My mother took me there once.  I thought it was just a history lesson.  But now you’re saying the councilor has ordered a team of scientists to meet us there?”

“Yeah, and now you know as much as I do,” he said.  “Any idea what artifact’s at the temple that the councilor finds so valuable?  She thought it could have something to do with the Catalyst.”

She tilted her head down slightly.  “That’s not much information for me to go on, Shepard.”

“Well, that’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Then, no, I’m afraid not.”

He grinned at her, but it was so forced, so strained, that she nearly flinched when she saw it.

“Some Shadow Broker you are,” he teased, to which her lip finally curled at one corner.

“Well, perhaps you will be my first lead in this case,” she said.  “I suppose some patience will do you well, and it will give me a chance to dig up what I can from my mother’s files.  Perhaps you should take this opportunity to rest.  You’re looking rather haggard.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

She immediately lifted her hands midway.  “O-Oh, no, Shepard, I didn’t mean it like that…”

_She stuttered like this back when she first came aboard the Normandy.  I guess some things never change._

“It’s all right,” he said.  “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

She smiled again, weak and cautious, but honest.  “Yes, I suppose you have,” she agreed.  “Please do yourself a favor, though, and take some time to relax.  You’ve been running yourself ragged.”

“If there’s something at that temple that can help us with the Catalyst, we need to get there right away,” he replied, folding his arms.

“I agree, but surely you know the dangers of going into a mission tired.”

He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward on the balustrade, curling his fingers around the edges of the metal railing.  “I do – all too well,” he murmured, letting his gaze slide toward the lake at the bottom of the Presidium.  Soon he turned his head back toward her, a grin peeking out from the corners of his mouth.  “So, what, you want some extra shore leave or something?”

“Not for myself,” she said.

That expectant look in her eye made his grin fade.  “I see.”

From that balcony, he could see the rest of the Presidium below.  There were fountains lining the lake and green grass and trees interrupting the span of clean gray metal structures and walkways, and even with its remaining damage, it was at peace with itself, striving toward some semblance of cohesiveness in the midst of galactic war.

From that balcony, he could see the imitation skyline overhead.  It curved around the other end of the Presidium ring until it faded at some mock horizon line, casting artificial sunlight over wrecked edifices, creating a sense of time entirely apart from that found just outside the station’s walls.

From that balcony, he could see Apollo’s Café at the other end of the small marketplace.  There were people standing in a short line at the counter and others seated at the tables near the café’s lower balcony, and seated at the table at which he had previously met Kaidan was a lone man, menu in hand.

Shepard was too far away to see the expression on his face, but not too far to know that he did not recognize the man.  And yet, as he stood there and watched that man, Shepard could see Kaidan sitting there, alone, absentmindedly scrolling through lines of text on the menu until his eyes grew sore and his heart finally sank in surrender when he realized that the commander was not going to show up.

And he wondered if that scenario would have been better than what had actually happened.  He had to look away.

_Ash believed so strongly in heaven and hell.  Which circle of hell is reserved for me?_

“Shepard?”

He winced and shifted unsteadily on his feet.  Liara merely watched the lines on his face, the furrow of his brow, and the guilt in his eyes.

“Shepard, are you all right?” she persisted.

Shepard took a deep breath and exhaled through the nose on some failed attempt to calm his nerves.  “Yeah, just fine,” he answered.

“You’re clearly not,” Liara replied, her concern bleeding through into the tone of her voice.  “Perhaps you should return to the _Normandy_.  Take some time to rest before we disembark.”

“You know, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” he said, and he had to let out a short chuckle at the end, so feeble and pitiful that it made Liara shudder from some feet away.  “You staying here?”

“Yes, I do love this part of the Presidium,” she replied, her disposition seemingly lighter at Shepard’s agreement to her request.  “Even when it’s still partially rubble.”

A weak grin grew over Shepard’s face.  “Yeah.”

“While I have you here, though, I must ask, Shepard,” Liara began, punctuating her sentence on each word as though she needed the hesitation to complete her thought, “what of Kaidan these days?”

His eyes widened, then immediately narrowed when he caught the involuntary action.  “What do you mean?” he asked as he turned toward her.

“He’s been well?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Uh, well…”  His sentence trailed off, but Liara did not need to hear the rest of it.

“I suppose not, then.”

Shepard’s brow furrowed the slightest bit.  “Okay, let me ask you, then: what brought that up?”

The knowing look in her eyes, the coy smile that she reserved for her rare sardonic moments, and the quick fold of her arms were all too telling.

_I take it back.  She’s changed in plenty of other ways._

“Contrary to your previous assessment, I’m a very good information broker,” she said.

Shepard actually laughed at that, albeit a weak chuckle rather than an earnest laugh.

“So, what did you find in all your research?” he asked, quirking a brow.

“That’s the interesting part,” she said.  “I didn’t need to research this one.  I didn’t need to look any further than what’s already written on your face.”

_Fuck._

“So, I really am that easy to read,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

“You feel guilty about something,” she said as she uncrossed her arms.  “That much is clear.”

He shook his head.  “I’d really rather not talk about this with—”

He stopped himself there.  Liara had expressed interest in him previously – several years ago, in fact – and sometimes he wondered if she had ever truly let it slip from her mind.  He had gently turned her down back then, and they maintained a healthy friendship, even if an odd one, after everything: after the battle of the Citadel, after his death, after defeating the original Shadow Broker, after the mission on Mars – after she had seen him at his best, at his worst, and at every situation in between.  But he could not shake the feeling that her interest lingered and that talking to her about a conflict of duty and soul, a regret he never felt when he had turned her down, would reopen old wounds.

 _How the hell would I talk to_ her _about it?_

Now Thessia, her home world, and surrounding asari space were beginning to come under the threat of encroachment by the Reapers, and yet she was concerned about him – his personal well-being, so small and trifling – in the midst of a galaxy collapsing on itself.  He again shook his head and let his gaze fall to where his hands gripped the railing.

“Then please talk to him,” she said, and he looked up at her.  “Even if you decide against it in the end, don't let yourself regret never knowing that moment of understanding – of real peace.”

He let out something close to a laugh, though it was tainted by a breathy sigh.  “I guess you’ve had a long time to philosophize about things like this,” he said.

Her gentle smile returned, but he would not dare look into her eyes.  “I’m only one hundred nine,” she said, “and I can’t say too many of those years were spent on philosophy.  Sometimes taking action is necessary, even if the end result is not what we had hoped for.”

“Yeah,” was all he could say.

“Perhaps I’ll see you back on the _Normandy_ in a couple of hours,” she said, and she leaned forward and rested her forearms over the railing.

He left without another word.

As he stood in the main elevator, hesitating with his hand hovering over the control panel, he thought of Liara: her genuine hope that he rest for his own sake, her honest wish that he have no regrets, her sincerity in every word and every glance.  She had spoken as a friend, truthfully and without restraint, and he owed her the effort of taking her words to heart.

More than that, though, she was right.  He tapped the module that would take him back to the _Normandy’s_ spaceport.

He made his way through the docking bay, passing through the thin crowds in the corridors, his every step becoming a little sturdier, a little faster, a little more determined.  He was so focused, so set in his sights, that the passageways narrowed his vision, traversable in a sheer force of will and grit that blocked out all outside influence and centered on one goal.

_Kaidan._

The slow airlock protocols and the glances of remaining crewmen could not jar his step.  The lift could not descend to the Crew Deck quickly enough.  The sight of the memorial wall that immediately faced him when the doors opened could not hinder him.

He took long strides toward the Starboard Observation lounge and let the pneumatic hiss of the door be the only indication of reality that he needed.

“Kaidan—”

He stopped where he was when all that met his eyes was an empty room.

“EDI,” he started, looking up toward the ceiling as though she were there, waiting for him.  “Where’s Kaidan?”

“Major Alenko has gone ashore,” her voice filtered out from a panel on the opposite wall.  “Per your prior orders, the _Normandy_ will remain docked at the Citadel for another four hours.”

Shepard swallowed the odd tang of uncertainty that welled up from the pit of his stomach.  “I see,” he said, and his gaze fell to the floor as his determination dissipated into the room’s thin air.

“You may be able to reach him via your short-range communicator,” EDI suggested.

“No, that’s okay.”

“Shall I have a message ready for him upon his return?”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Is there any other way I might assist you, Shepard?”

“No,” he said, drawing up the display on his omni-tool.  “Thanks, EDI.”

“Logging you out.”

He set his omni-tool to silent mode and headed for the lift, where he let himself sink against the metal wall as the door closed before him.


	14. Moment

Shepard spent an hour alone in his cabin while the _Normandy_ remained docked at the Citadel.  He had locked the door and settled into his desk chair for the long haul.  He had told himself he would hammer out those unfinished reports.  He had told himself he would review the temple’s coordinates and make plans.  He had told himself he would focus on what mattered.

_I tell myself a lot of things._

But only when he heard a knock at the door did he look up.

“I told you I’m not doing your damn interview, Allers,” he called, turning his eyes back to the datapad in his hand.  “Quit while you’re ahead.”

“What?  Shepard, it’s me.”

_Kaidan._

“…Oh.”

Shepard stood up and set the datapad aside, then made his way to the door and unlocked it.  When the locking mechanism display’s hue faded from a sharp red into an inviting green, he waited for the door to open, and his chest tightened when he saw Kaidan standing there with his brows upturned slightly, a perplexed expression plastered upon his face and a quirk at his lips that threatened to break down into a grin.

“Come in,” Shepard said, and he gestured somewhere toward the desk.

“Thanks,” Kaidan said as he took his first few steps inside.

Shepard watched him wait there while the door closed just behind him: how he stood at an odd angle, how his torso slanted to one side as if hiding something – but he decided not to press the matter.

“Now, what was that about an interview with Allers?” Kaidan suddenly asked.

Shepard let the question fester in the air for a few seconds before he answered.

“She’s been pestering me since after Rannoch,” he muttered, bringing a hand to his temple.  “The last interview I had with her was right after the coup attempt.  She started off by saying that the Alliance Parliament was destroyed and that the Prime Minister was dead, and then she asked me how long I expected any new Alliance administration to last.”

Kaidan nodded once.  “Tough question.”

“I didn’t answer it.”

“Huh?”

“I told her that was an irresponsible and dangerous question to ask in the middle of a war.”

“I’m sure she didn’t like that.”

“No, she didn’t.”  Shepard chuckled to himself, recalling the moment as though it had actually been enjoyable, but the frustration in the set of his brow gave him away.  “She turned the camera off and said that she was asking the questions that millions were asking, and that these were important issues for _everyone_ in the galaxy.”

“And then you changed your mind?” Kaidan prompted.

“No.  I told her, ‘then _everyone_ can kiss my ass.’”

Kaidan’s weak smile finally grew into a grin.  “Charming.”

“Yeah, so I haven’t been much in the mood for her bullshit since then,” Shepard said, letting his back rest against the cold glass of the aquarium.  “I’m not exactly good with the idea of all the deaths that brought about the end of the geth-quarian war being made the subject of some sensationalized piece of media garbage.”

“Maybe her questions this time around would be a bit more… light?”

“Maybe.  But I’m not going to find out.  When the hell did I ever decide that bringing her on board was a good idea?  Goddamn reporters.”

Kaidan shrugged.  “At least you’ve graduated from punching them out.”

“I guess so,” Shepard said, voice low, but soon a smirk stretched halfway across his lips.  “Felt good at the time, though.”

Kaidan laughed, a breathy chuckle that made Shepard look up.  “Sometimes you worry me, Shepard.”

“And you worry me, too,” Shepard retorted, pulling himself away from the glass.  “I tried to comm you earlier and I didn’t get through.”

“I know, I’m sorry about that,” Kaidan said, drawing a hand up to rub the side of his neck, his torso turning partway to the other side as though retreating from him.  “EDI relayed a message before I left the ship.  She was able to locate one of my squads.”

“Wait, really?  That’s great news.”

_Why didn’t EDI just tell me that?  Wasn’t an important detail?  Personal information about a crewmember that she didn’t want to share?  Or can she read me that easily, too?  God damn it._

“Yeah,” Kaidan started, and he let his expression relax, but only slightly.  “Took a little while for them to get back to me.  I waited on board the _Normandy_ for a while, but I only got the call after I was already on the Citadel.  I noticed that you tried to comm me, but I figured I’d finish up my business there and just come see you.”

“And what business was that?”

“Well…”

Kaidan straightened his posture and brought his hand forward from its vague hiding position behind his back.  He held a small bag, his fingers gripping the plastic loops with measured control even as a sheepish smirk began to creep over his face.  Shepard cocked an eyebrow at it, then folded his arms and looked up at Kaidan’s face, which was now tainted by telltale embarrassment.

“You went shopping?” Shepard asked.

The lilt in his voice surprised even himself, and Kaidan’s features eased when he heard it.

“Maybe.”

“I thought you didn’t like the Citadel, anyway,” Shepard replied as he uncrossed his arms.  “Lights and noise and crowds and all that.”

“We all make sacrifices.”

Shepard allowed himself a moment to watch the gentle profile of Kaidan’s face as he turned his head to look back at him properly, all sincerity and honesty and something like hope in his eyes, in the faint blue hue outlining the brown of his irises.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Shepard said, taking a couple steps forward.  “What’s in the bag?”

Kaidan smiled and opened up the bag to retrieve two boxes.  He balanced one on his forearm and handed the other one to Shepard, who gazed down at it as if it were entirely foreign even though he recognized it straightaway.

“Model ships?” he asked, lifting his eyes to meet Kaidan’s, and the subtle grin that perked up the corners of his lips was returned in earnest.

“Yep,” Kaidan replied.  “I got an Alliance cruiser for me, and I got a quarian ship for you, since, you know, we just got Rannoch back.  Thought you could use a moment away from it all.”

Shepard studied the picture on the box: the quarian frigate was drifting through black space, backlit by only a few low-resolution stars.  When he again looked up, he found Kaidan fumbling through the bag with one hand while attempting to balance the box on his other forearm, finally releasing a proud ‘ah’ when he captured the small tube of glue.  Shepard’s contented smile grew a little wider.

He knew he should have said that he did not have time for this.  He knew he should have said that the gesture was appreciated but unnecessary, or perhaps even wasteful.  Instead, he gestured toward the short staircase and then headed for the couch at the opposite corner, and Kaidan set the empty bag aside on Shepard’s desk and followed him.  Shepard set the box on the coffee table at the center of the sectional couch and took a seat near one end, looking up to find Kaidan standing near the lone recliner at the other end, unsure of where he should go – uncertain of where he belonged.

Shepard ignored the pang in his stomach and patted the cushion next to his, and when Kaidan’s face lit up, the pain dissipated, leaving only a pleasant warmth, which quickly grew sweltering when Kaidan took a seat at his side, only a few feet away, close enough to hear his breaths, close enough to read the lines on his face, close enough to brush knees with a single misplaced movement.

He began to pry open the folds at one end of the box, fixing his eyes and mind on some other task as quickly as he could manage.

“So you had this planned all along, huh,” Shepard said.  “With how rarely you actually take shore leave...”

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, unhooking one of the flaps on the box in his hands.  “I know how much you enjoy meeting with the Citadel politicians.  And I even got a nice comment from Joker on my way back in.”

Shepard felt an involuntary smirk creep over his face.  “And by ‘nice’ you mean...?”

Kaidan’s voice fell low, nervous.  “Well, I may have grabbed his shoulder during the whole thing with the Reaper on Rannoch.”

Shepard finally turned his head to look at him.  “You know about his brittle bone disease,” he said, and Kaidan frowned when he saw the remnants of Shepard’s smile fading.

“Yeah, I was, uh… a little preoccupied,” he replied, fixing his attention back on the carton in his hands.  “EDI assured me everything had been fine, but still…”

Shepard shrugged as he drew the pieces from the box.  “So he’s fine,” he said.  “I'm sure he’s just giving you a hard time.  He does that.”

“That he does,” Kaidan said, a breathy chuckle underlining his words.  Soon his eyes softened, and the final moments of his laugh lingered upon his lips in the form a smile.  “You’ve got a great team here, Shepard.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shepard said.  “We’ve all been through hell.  And there’s even more hell to look forward to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Shepard reached for the tube of glue and uncapped it.  “And I’m taking you with me…”— _to hell?_ —“…to Thessia.”

“Bring it on.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

They began to build their model ships, taking turns with the tube of glue, occasionally glancing up when they could not find a given piece or when the glue had been placed slightly out of reach, and they enjoyed the silence, the peace, the moment as it was: tiny imperfections and subtle clumsiness in every motion and every unvoiced word that drew them away from the war, away from the politics, away from their unspoken fears and doubts and frustrations.

Shepard finally broke the silence: “This is a fine distraction you’ve conjured up, Kaidan.”

“You could use a distraction once in a while, Shepard,” he replied.  “It might help you relax.”

Shepard suppressed a chuckle.  ‘ _Relax,’ huh…_

“You know,” Kaidan began, “I picked these up from a shop down in Zakera Ward, and I heard something interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“‘I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel.’”  Kaidan paused there, a faint smile stretching over his lips when he heard Shepard actually chuckle.  “I have to admit that it, uh… surprised me a bit when I walked in.”

“Heh, yeah.  They gave me a nice discount for that endorsement.  But I’m surprised they’re still using it, especially after I was detained on Earth.”

“They probably never got a better offer,” Kaidan said.  “Galactic heroes are hard to come by.”

“‘Hero’?” Shepard said, the quirk of his eyebrow complementing the grin that overtook his face.  “Is that why you’re here?  See what secrets you can manage to coax out of Commander Shepard?”

Kaidan shrugged his shoulders and answered, “If I wanted to do that, I would’ve brought some alcohol.”

Shepard lifted his gaze from the model in his hands to find Kaidan looking away, a subtle upturn at the corner of the major’s lip bringing a gentle light to his profile as he capped the tube of glue and set it aside.  When Kaidan looked up, a quirk of his brow revealed his brief surprise at finding Shepard’s eyes on him, but it quickly fell again, his face genuinely at ease after so long, and Shepard could not stop the tiny grin that crossed his lips.

Kaidan looked so peaceful in that light, in that awkward flush on his cheeks, in that moment where he could wear genuine happiness without the shame of what he might call _unprofessionalism_.  It was a calming sight: the faded creases at the corners of his eyes, the smoothed angles of his cheekbones and jawline, the gentle curl of his lips and the slant of his neck and the broad span of his shoulders and the firm breadth of his pecs—

_Wait, what?_

Shepard let time pass in silence until he had finished building his model ship and merely had to wait for Kaidan.

Kaidan studied his own completed model: excess glue had spilled out from the seams and hardened into tiny crests that ruined the ship’s silhouette, the complementary pieces of the hull and thrusters did not align properly, and certain attachments were off-center and now permanently fixed in their imperfections with the dried glue.

“Ah…” he started, nearly wincing at the sight of it, “mine looks like an accident.  Definitely not spaceworthy.”  He looked to his side.  “Yours is perfect, just like all the other ones.”

Shepard capped the tube of glue and set it aside.  “I just have more practice.”

“And steadier hands.”

“Are you flirting with me, Kaidan?”

“I might be.”

Shepard had to smile at that – even if he did not fully understand why.  He set the finished model aside and turned his head toward Kaidan, who placed his own model on the tabletop some feet away, something like embarrassment continuing to stain his features.  They glanced at each other once, twice, and finally smiled, earnest and open and honest.

This moment was perfect.

“Thanks, Kaidan,” Shepard said.  “I needed this.”

“Thank _you_ , Shepard.”

Shepard hesitated when he caught sight of white fabric peeking out from beneath the bunched sleeve of Kaidan’s uniform.  Without thinking, he reached for Kaidan’s arm, hesitating on the initial spasm when his fingertips touched the exposed flesh, and then began to unwind the bandages there, still white and clean as though just changed.  With one hand he set the long ribbon of bandaging aside, letting it curl into itself as it collapsed upon the far end of the table, and with the other hand he traced a few exploratory fingers around the edges of the wound.

Kaidan avoided eye contact, but he could not suppress the confusion that came to his face.  Shepard let his hand fall to the couch at his side, and then looked up to meet Kaidan’s eyes, which turned awkwardly toward him at the motion.

“Does it still hurt?” Shepard asked.

“A little,” Kaidan answered.  “Not enough to warrant painkillers.”

Shepard glanced back down at Kaidan’s arm, where the wound had become a scar, misshapen and discolored, but healed over with grafted skin or a synthetic weave or some other miracle that Chakwas must have imagined up.

“The wound looks great, Kaidan.”

Kaidan tilted his head.  “That’s an odd thing for someone to say.”

“But a good thing for you to hear,” Shepard replied.  “It’s healed well.”

“Good news.”

“You haven’t been watching it?”

“Not really.”  Kaidan again looked away, and Shepard winced through the twinge low in his gut.  “It’s just another scar now.”

Then Shepard had to look away, too.

He stared forward into the abyss, silently hoping to find Kaidan returning the gaze, and as his vision began to blur around the edges, a pure smile pierced even that thick haze and dragged him back from the brink to return him to his own skin, to the reality of that moment, to the beauty before him in Kaidan sitting there with him, Kaidan always at his side, Kaidan mirroring the swell of his heart in the shine of his eyes.

After everything, after all the hell they had already been through and would continue to slog through, Kaidan had smiled at him.  Shepard shook his head slightly, mostly as a gesture to himself, still unbelieving that the man at his side would choose to remain there – willingly, and with no strings attached – if only because they had called each other ‘friend.’  Kaidan had too many scars.  Shepard hated to see them.  None of this hell should have been Kaidan’s burden to bear, but there Kaidan was – had always been – seeking to ease the load on Shepard’s shoulders, to take on scars that would never fully heal.

But there was too much to talk about, too many unknowns, too much silence and uncertainty even in this perfect moment between them.  Shepard closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.

_How stupid am I to be the one opening up old wounds right now?_

He opened his eyes and asked, “Can we talk about Horizon?”

Kaidan fell utterly still.  His breathing momentarily halted, and the light in his eyes dulled for a split-second.

“I thought we had a pretty good understanding that we weren’t going to talk about it,” he finally said, shifting uncomfortably on the couch.  “You didn’t seem to want to talk about it even after—”

“After I was the one to bring it up when you were in the hospital,” Shepard answered.  “Yeah, I know.”

“So after we just buried Noveria, now you want to talk about Horizon?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Shepard—”

“I know,” he said with a sigh.  “Consider it another apology, one far too long in the making.”

Kaidan looked sheepishly up at him.  “So what do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you need to,” Shepard answered.

Kaidan scrubbed a hand over the side of his neck, his telltale nervous habit.  “I, uh… don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“At the beginning.  Right.”

Kaidan hesitated there, eyes scanning back and forth, seeing nothing as he mentally scoured his brain for the right words, but once he surrendered the attempt, he let his words flow unfiltered, just as Shepard should have heard them.

“I guess I… I mourned you, Shepard.  I tried to move on.  And life just kind of stagnated without you.  I mean, yeah, the promotion and everything, but you— there was no replacing you.  I thought you were dead.  And when I saw you there, alive, I just… everything came crashing down.  The scars on your face – and on Garrus’, for that matter – were, well—”

“Horrifying?” Shepard offered.

“Yeah.”

The agreement made the coil in Shepard’s gut tighten, tension threatening to break him down under the phantom pain.

“I just couldn’t believe it was you at first,” Kaidan continued.  “I couldn’t believe you would do that – turn your back on everything, I mean.”

_On you._

Kaidan shrugged his shoulders before he added, “I was doing the right thing, working with the Alliance and moving on with life, you know?  But it was so empty, like… like I couldn’t function properly.  Like I lost a limb.”

_Did you say that at the time?  I don’t even know… shit, I’m so sorry, Kaidan._

Shepard let his gaze fall slightly.  “And then I said you weren’t listening to reason.”

“I didn’t understand how reason figured into any of it.  I mean, I’m sure you had reasons of your own, but I just couldn’t see you leaving me behind like that, so I—”

“You were right.  You didn’t know where I was coming from.”

“So why are we talking about this?”

Shepard looked at him, some unknowable determination in the light of his eyes and in the set of his jaw.  “Because I wanted to understand… because I wanted to hear from you exactly what you needed to say,” he said.  “You’re always true to what you believe in.  That’s something I’ve always admired about you, even when I was on the wrong side.”

Kaidan felt his brow furrow, and he decided to let it do so without restraint.  “Back then, you seemed pretty sure that you were doing the right thing.”

“Fighting the Collectors, sure,” Shepard said.  “I had the resources I needed to do it.  But you?  Pushing you away, saying all those things I never should have, watching you walk away from me… I regretted it.  And that decision I made that day at Apollo’s – I regretted that, too.”

Shepard watched the subtle contortions of Kaidan’s face, every emotion swirling about in his head becoming reality upon his expression.

“Why tell me that?” Kaidan asked. The hopeful undertone to his voice made Shepard cringe.

He glanced away.  _That’s a good question._

“Shit, I don’t know,” he said.

“No, really,” Kaidan persisted, leaning forward with his forearms over his knees.  “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m just sorry for all the hell I’ve put you through.  I… I want to make it right.”

“Well, this is a good start,” Kaidan said.  “This moment right here.”

_Yeah.  I could stay here forever._

Shepard let himself sink against the back of the couch, and he watched Kaidan mirror the action at his side.  Was this that moment of ‘real peace’ that Liara mentioned?  No festering misunderstandings, no unhealed scars, no unexpressed regrets?

_No.  There’s a big fucking issue in the way._

Shepard pulled himself up from the back of the couch and straightened his posture, observing as Kaidan watched him with a bemused expression plastered upon his face and a concerned dip at each corner of his mouth.

“Kaidan, let’s stop skirting the issue.”

“Uh…”

“I haven’t given you a straight answer,” Shepard clarified.

“For wha— oh.”  Kaidan sat up straight, but he could not look Shepard in the eye.  “Well, uh… only you can really decide what you want.  I mean, you know what I want, but, you know, it’s— I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either,” Shepard said.  “I do know that you’ve been clear, and that this is all on me, just like every other damn thing—”

Kaidan turned his head slightly, every subtle change bringing new, faint lights to the angles of his face, and Shepard observed them all, just how beautiful this man was, and—

“Are you afraid of something?” Kaidan asked, and Shepard shivered in his seat.

_Everything._

“I’m not afraid.”  That was a lie.  “I’m tired of fucking up— everything.  Fucking everything up.”  That part was true.

Kaidan offered a weak smile – it was all he could manage at the moment.  “Well, you always know where to find me,” he said.  “And, you know, no matter what you decide, I’ll still be here for you.  We’ve been through a hell of a lot, and it’s been a wild ride – absolutely crazy, sometimes, too – but that won’t change.”

_How do you do it?  How do you know what you want and then watch it fester just out of reach?  Because of integrity?  Because it’s the right thing to do?_

“I know,” Shepard replied.  “I do know that.”

“So it’s okay, Shepard.”

“You deserve an answer.”  _So why is it so goddamn hard to say something?_

Kaidan’s eyes fell to the tabletop, where he would not have to face the sting of those sharp blue eyes set so intently upon him.  He heaved a sigh into the cold, recycled air of the cabin, newly thick with unspoken frustration and yet thinning within his own space, within the words that he managed to draw from the bottom of his core.

“Yeah, well, it’s…  I’ve had some time to think about it.  I mean, I could blame you for indecision, but it’s not like I’ve never been pulled in different directions.  Sometimes you follow your gut, sometimes you follow your head, and sometimes you follow your heart – and, if you’re lucky, they all point in the same direction.  For me, they point toward you.  They have for a long time.  Maybe it didn’t always seem like it, like on Horizon, but, well… I guess I just had to stop and listen, you know?”

Shepard’s eyes softened, if only momentarily.  “Kaidan—”

“I know I shouldn’t say things like that,” Kaidan said as he glanced up at him.  “Not until you’re sure.  But I wanted you to know that.  Maybe that’s selfish of me… I don’t know.”

_You’ve never had it in you to be dishonest._

“And, just so you know, I’d wait until the end of galaxy for you,” Kaidan added, but his gaze quickly fell away again.  “I, uh, hope it doesn’t actually come to that, but… yeah.”

“Kaidan, I… thank you.  I—”

He stopped himself there, letting his final words die on the tip of his tongue, some unknowable force shifting from the back of his mind and into the pit of his stomach, bubbling up to constrict his throat and refusing to let the thought become reality.

When he did glance up and catch sight of Shepard’s eyes so intensely focused on him, newly alight with the accent of deep blue from the fish tank on the opposite wall, Kaidan swallowed hard.  He turned his head away and stared at the tabletop, his gaze darting back and forth between the model ships – one so meticulously constructed with the fine control he had always envied, and one built with honest effort that still failed to measure up to it.

“You sound so surprised,” he said.  “After everything, you think I’d walk out on you now?”

“No, but I’d understand if you did,” Shepard replied.

“I told you I’d never doubt you again, and then I did.  We’re both just trying to do the right thing.”

_Is that why you won’t push for what you want?  Because it’s not right?_

“What if it’s...”

Kaidan again looked up when he heard the strain in Shepard’s voice, but the sentence buckled halfway through.  He watched the furrow of Shepard’s brow and the sharp line sealing his lips together, the highlighted blue shine to his eyes now dulled by exhaustion and something else – something uniquely set in the permanent creases between his eyebrows and at the corners of his mouth – that he could not quite interpret.  Kaidan grew a weak smile and decided to let the words linger in the air, fractured and scrambling to form a coherent thought, but they dissipated into an unsettled silence.

And Shepard stayed still.  _But what if what I want is just…?_

Kaidan tilted his head slightly and said, “I think what you need right now is some rest, like you promised me after Rannoch… which I’m now sure you never actually took.”

Shepard shifted slightly in his seat, failing to draw away the warmth that continued to radiate in his cheeks against his will.  _I think what I_ need _right now is a cold shower…_

“I suppose I do owe you that much,” he said.

“You’ve got a couple more hours before we shove off,” Kaidan said.  “Spend them wisely.”

“You giving me orders now, Major?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

His words were teasing and suggestive and tempting – or maybe Shepard was projecting it onto them – and that coy half-lidded glance and that complementary smile were more than sufficient to draw the breath from Shepard’s lungs and leave his chest tight and strained.  He watched the subtlest movements of Kaidan’s lips, the reflexive curl of Kaidan’s fingers, and imagined how they would feel pressed upon his flesh or—

_Oh, shit – no.  No.  No… no.  Fuck—_

The strain spread, the coil low in his gut threatening to collapse upon itself in the most painful way, and Kaidan must have noticed the contortions on his face that slipped through the vise grip he had attempted to hold over his emotions.  Kaidan eyed him for a moment, leaning forward slightly, letting his knee hit Shepard’s, but there was nothing but concern in his eyes.

“You okay?” he asked.

Shepard shifted his knee away and clasped a hand over it, confining it under his quivering fingers, controlling it as best he could.  “Y-Yeah,” he answered, fixing his gaze on the fish tank at the opposite wall.  “I, uh…”

That worried expression lingered in Shepard’s field of vision despite his best efforts to escape it.

“I’m good, really,” Shepard said.  “I’m glad we talked.  Now I just need to go over some things and—”

“You’d better say ‘rest,’” Kaidan said, the tiniest hint of a smile gracing his lips, full and inviting and—

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Okay.  That’s all I ask for.  Good timing, too. I think I’ll reach out to my squad again while I know they’re available.”

“Good.  Yeah.  Go do that.”

Kaidan smiled.  Shepard tried to avoid it, but it was there, right before him – it was all he could see, it was everything all at once – and even after Kaidan stood up and left for the door, it was there, burned into his retinas, defying the screams of his innermost voice and putting on the bright display in spite of it.  His gut ached, his heart raced, and that little voice in the back of his mind cried out in protest, but still—

He wanted—

_Fuck…!_


	15. Break

The _Normandy_ was halfway to Thessia when the question finally crested and broke.

_What the hell am I doing?_

He had already called Kaidan up to his cabin.  Kaidan was on his way now.  And Shepard paced the deck, every thought he had so violently shoved aside now bearing down upon him with merciless vengeance.

He had a mission.  He should have been focused on the mission.  He had always been about the mission.  But now he was concerned about matters so trifling in comparison.  He no longer had the pure resolve upon which the entire galaxy set its expectations and beliefs and hope.

He had lost control.  He had lost his absolute certainty, and instead he had willingly surrendered reason to the unknowable feeling that crept into his heart and stayed there, festering, growing, blossoming into a threat against everything he had ever known with sheer conviction and force of will.  The strain had become unbearable, and the willpower required to bury that desire under a façade of certainty had become a burden, a hindrance stacking upon the already-heavy load on his shoulders.

Every thought of Kaidan had become an obligation – a feeling.

He wanted it.  He could admit that.  It was a little-advertised occupational hazard in his line of work – too much time spent in such confined space – and it was usually easy enough to ignore when there were much greater matters to focus on; the prospect of death and destruction was great motivation for setting aside petty attractions.

But how badly he wanted it and why it had suddenly hit him like a deadfall were entirely different matters.  It did not make sense.  Or maybe it made perfect sense.  He resigned himself to being content with not knowing, but maybe—

No, it did make sense.  Too many voiced concerns and unspoken frustrations, too many brushes of warm skin, too many long gazes into the unfathomable depths of his eyes.

This was reactionary.  Tension.  A coil low in his gut had tightened to the point of breaking, and it needed release.  It had nothing to do with feeling.

_…Right?  Yeah.  Right._

When he heard a knock at the door, he looked up, drawing his sight and his mind from his own personal version of purgatory.

“Shepard, you wanted to see me?” came a concerned call from the other side.  “What’s going on?  Are you okay?”

Shepard unlocked the door, took a few steps back, and waited for Kaidan to follow him inside, remaining utterly silent, merely watching the sway of his hips and the broad span of his shoulders and the slant of his neck as he turned his head slightly to the side, every angle of his face alight with the faint glow of the aquarium, every tiny circle of that reflected blue hue bringing a curious shine to the brown eyes set so intently upon him now.

_Just once._

Without a word, Shepard reached for Kaidan’s belt, hooking his index fingers over it, pressing the digits into the major’s flesh, keeping his head tilted down and his eyes fixed forward on the buckle as he began to undo the clasp of it, and he stopped only when Kaidan’s startled gasp drew the air from his space.  Kaidan took a step back.  And Shepard followed, biting his lip and tracing his tongue over the indent left behind by a canine.

Kaidan opened his mouth, but his attempted words faded into a broken moan when Shepard unhooked the belt clasp, swiftly undid the zipper, and palmed him through the material of his exposed boxer-briefs.  Kaidan bit back a longer groan, shutting his eyes to the world around him, reveling in the warmth of Shepard’s hand on him, the friction against him, the pure want already palpable in the air between them.  He took a step forward, shuddering under the shift in angle, and gripped Shepard’s biceps, fingers straining to maintain stability against the hard muscle there.  He opened his eyes to find Shepard’s gaze dart up to meet his, a half-lidded glare that reeked of unspoken desire.

“Shepard,” Kaidan breathed against him, a single exhale that exuded every tiny tension in his body, “is this… are you—”

“Yeah.”

The word was an answer to a forever unknown question.  It caught at the end on a hard swallow, a futile attempt to rid himself of the phantom taste of bile that was bubbling up his throat.  And it was caustic, burning on the back of his tongue like a lie.

“Just do it, Kaidan.”

_Just once._

Shepard took a few steps backward, tugging at the opened front of Kaidan’s trousers to drag him along, and stopped when his back hit the glass of the aquarium, the sudden cold sensation piercing even the thick padding of his uniform.  He shuddered under the cold, his fingertips teasing past the waistband of Kaidan’s boxer-briefs with tiny shivering movements, seeking the warmth of his flesh, the heat of his desire.

Kaidan’s grip tightened with the initial upstroke against him, his head tilting back slightly on a stuttering gasp and his mouth dropping open to a gape as his fingers curled ever tighter around Shepard’s firm biceps, every tiny motion rippling through thick muscle and pulsing against Kaidan’s fingertips.  Every languid stroke against him, one hand beneath the increasingly-constricting fabric and one hand above it, was every touch, every feeling, every word that died on the tip of his tongue and left only short gasps in its place.  There were no words between them – there was no need.

_I don’t have to give an answer._

Shepard roughly trailed his hands up and over Kaidan’s waist and pecs, and he took Kaidan’s jaw in his palms with such steady motions that Kaidan shivered under the touch, the warmth of the callused skin upon him sending his eyes wide and lips apart on a confused murmur that only made it halfway to a rational thought.  Kaidan leaned forward, his every breath wafting out from between quivering lips, but stopped where he was when one of Shepard’s hands slid to the base of his skull, fingers skimming over his amp port and entwining themselves in his hair.

They stayed in that compromise – an insistent hand at the nape of Kaidan’s neck, pulling him away when his breaths bled into needy moans, reining him back in when he strayed too far – until Kaidan managed a soft chuckle between thick exhales, taking it all as a tease, as deeply arousing as it was tormenting.  Shepard shut his eyes and turned his head away.

_Nobody has to get hurt._

When a hand fell to his belt and began to hastily undo the clasp, Shepard drew in a sharp breath, the creases between his eyes deepening with every action, his head dropping forward with an insistent tug of the zipper and stroke against the confining fabric of his boxer-briefs.  And then there was a long sigh against his neck, a soft moan that might have been his name, and Shepard shuddered under the warm breath, the hot flesh against his, curled fingers swiftly delving into the narrowest spaces between his body and garments and drawing a slow stroke or two up the hardening flesh there.

One hand fisted at the nape of Kaidan’s neck, fingers clenching into the palm until the nails left semicircular indents in its own skin, and the other hand fell to Kaidan’s waist and gripped the fabric of his uniform, grasping for purchase amidst the novel sensation below.  As his erection was drawn from his briefs, the rush of cold air over his flesh soon drowned under the heat of Kaidan’s hand gripping it with such a skillful hold.  And as those fingers curled around him, a thumb sliding up and over the head in a few tentative motions, Shepard wavered on his feet, pressing his back up against the cold glass for support as searing heat shot up his spine in spite of it.  His mind was slipping, and his nerves were ablaze.

_It’s only a quick fuck, a moment to stop thinking – to clear my head._

He opened his eyes and tugged at Kaidan’s uniform, drawing him closer and releasing a soft groan when their chests came into contact, all fabric and friction against overstimulated skin, every motion filling the space between them in tiny moments of piercing desire.  His hand traced down Kaidan’s neck to his clothed chest and abs and finally pressed into the opened waistband of his trousers, where the bulge in his briefs was straining against the material.  Pushing the fabric down, he trailed his fingers along the hard shaft, smooth skin beneath his rough hand, firm tissue against dexterous fingertips.  Kaidan opened his mouth at the touch, the friction, the pure want fulfilled.

“Shit, Shepard—!”  A curse, heated words wafting about Shepard’s neck on a hitched gasp and forcing his muscles to tense and flex beneath them, matching time as they stroked each other with such fervent movements.  But he could not think – he only had enough willpower left to suppress the name that burned in the hollow of his throat and threatened to break free, to meld with the hot breath that was grazing over his skin and provoking a fine sheen of sweat from it.

_It doesn’t have to mean anything._

The awkward angles, forearms sliding against tense abs, elbows brushing against opposite arms, and muscles flexing over one another were overwhelming.  Shepard unconsciously shifted his hips to match Kaidan’s strokes, meeting the long curls of his wrist and the friction of his fingers and the occasional flick of his thumb up the sensitive underside.  He mirrored every long stroke on Kaidan’s length, earning a stumbling string of alternating moans and gasps against his neck.

When Kaidan drifted closer, bringing his wrist against Shepard’s and gently nudging it away on an unspoken demand, Shepard let his hand fall to his side, only to then find it scrambling for purchase at Kaidan’s waist when Kaidan took both of their erections in hand and drew them together in a few tentative strokes.  Shepard clutched the fabric of Kaidan’s uniform with trembling fingers, holding on for all that he could amidst the intense friction, the unbearable heat, the intimate touch.

_Just one time._

And when Kaidan began stroking them together in earnest, Shepard was lost.  It was tight, controlled – perfect, like they were made to fit together in that same intimate touch.  They panted against each other’s necks, drawing closer to one another with half-lidded eyes, welled with desire and tension.  And Shepard let himself fade into the touch, into the moment where they were undeniably alive and imperfectly human.

Against all his plans, he was falling into the feeling.  The tone that called itself _the_ _voice of reason_ , the hazy muddle of whispers that haunted his nightmares and spoke of death and failure, could make only one demand now.

_Just… for god’s sake, don’t kiss him._

And then it faded, lost in the chaos of gasps and moans and terse sighs shared between them.

The hand at his upper arm gripped a little tighter, and then he felt a tense exhale released into the shell of his ear, warm skin against his own, chests heaving into one another on staggered breaths, overstimulated nerves pulsing with the friction and heat and undeniable pleasure.  Shepard tipped his head back against the glass, shuddering under every touch.  The breaths wafting against his ear slowly fell to his craned neck, the skin there taut and strained with each short moan that strung along his throat and slipped from his mouth.

The subtlest twitches of Kaidan’s jaw flitted against that exposed neck, lips trembling with slight movements that threatened to press fully against it and trace their way up and down that warm flesh, perhaps with a tongue or a bite or even a trail of soft kisses.  But Kaidan kept himself restrained, his every motion controlled despite individual attempts to escape – to delve further and claim Shepard’s flesh – and his reward was a stuttering groan from Shepard, plagued by unchecked desire, sending a disjointed string of tremors against his lips, each one a threat of its own that promised to make Kaidan unravel and lose what semblance of control he had left.

With another flick of the wrist, Shepard nearly collapsed against the glass, trembling under the perfection of Kaidan’s precise hold, of his fingers wrapped around the shafts and sliding up and over the heads in rapid succession, of his thumb slicking over the slits in alternating strokes.  Every motion held them together, taut skin on taut skin, thick veins pulsing against one another in shared time, and Shepard began drifting into the abyss, knowing and feeling Kaidan and nothing else.

His head turned further toward Kaidan, his every shiver under that skilled hand and warm skin a mark of defiance, a subtle rebellion against every disapproving thought.  When Kaidan’s lips finally pressed against the skin of his neck, tracing soft patterns in perfectly straight lines, Shepard nearly cried out at the assault on his body: the deft fingers stroking them together, the silkiest lips he had ever known gracing over his skin, the warm coil low in his gut tightening with every step toward the edge.

Kaidan shifted his hips, bringing them closer together, filling what little space had remained between them.  Pre-cum began to merge in the smallest spaces, soon smoothed over each head with measured strokes of Kaidan’s thumb, and the warm fluid streaking over overheated flesh sent Shepard’s nerves reeling.  He held down a moan in the base of his throat, only to stutter it out on ragged breaths when Kaidan’s tongue traced a short line over his Adam’s apple, drawing up his beaded sweat and leaving the skin cool.

Shepard clenched the fabric of Kaidan’s uniform as tightly as he could bear, bracing himself for each of his shallow thrusts forward into Kaidan’s hand.  Kaidan lifted his head, slowly, carefully, drawing his mouth over the stubble of Shepard’s jaw and chin as he kept his head tilted back, and Shepard’s heart surged into his sternum when he felt the faintest touch of their lips—

_—od, Kaidan, I love y—_

And then his eyes snapped open.

“Stop.”

Kaidan pulled back, his eyes darting between Shepard’s. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a single breath of a sentence, more concerned than strained.

“Just— just stop,” was all Shepard could manage.

His head dropped forward slightly, weighed down by some unknown force, and he peered up through half-lidded eyes, still lost in the dark spaces between pleasure and fear.  Kaidan swallowed hard.  For all that the man was a true soldier, a fearless leader on the battlefield, and an intimidating diplomat in the boardroom, Shepard appeared utterly petrified.

He was afraid.

Shepard’s gaze fell, tracing haphazard patterns, attempting to see anything and everything but the expression on Kaidan’s face.  And Kaidan nervously waited for him, eyes fixed forward.

When Shepard spoke again, his voice was so weak that it sounded foreign to his own ears.

“You should go.”

Despite the decisiveness of Shepard’s words, his skin was still flushed, his lip was still quivering, and his chest was still heaving, and Kaidan winced when faced with the tense combination.  Every ragged breath that fell from Shepard’s lips was like a punch to the gut.  He finally opened his mouth to speak.

“Shepard—”

“I’m sorry.”  Shepard’s words were breathless, and his eyes were flooded with anxiety.  “I want— I need time.  Please, go.”

He could not look Kaidan in the eye as his hands fell from the major’s waist.  Kaidan hesitated for only a moment, watching for a telltale sign, hoping for an explanation, only to finally concede to the silence.  He slowly retracted his hand, the thumb coming away slick, the string of combined pre-cum that had beaded between their erections collapsing as they separated.  He tucked himself into his uniform and refastened his belt into place, shifting on his feet with the uncomfortably tight fabric against him.  With one more glance at the aggrieved expression that stained Shepard’s face, Kaidan took a step back and then turned on his heel and headed for the door without a word.

When Shepard heard the final pneumatic hiss of the door coming to a close, he let himself slump against the glass, pressing his back up against it for support, but only barely.

_Damn it— why?_

He said he needed time, but there was no time left.  Not with this war, not with every mission looming in the darkness of space, not with every doubt unraveling his every decision.  He vehemently shoved all thought from his mind and let his body shudder against the glass, and then closed his eyes to the only whisper that remained.

 _His_ voice.

When he finally let himself listen to it, earnest and longing, it was the loudest whisper of them all: pure, sincere, certain.  It was every word he had refused to hear, every moment spent in calm silence, every decision he had ever regretted – light in the darkness of space, life in the ruins of failure, a clear voice in the cacophony of death.  It was a beautiful sight, a soothing sound, a sweet aftertaste.

It said everything.  It meant everything.  It was everything.

Shepard’s hand fell to his length, curled fingers drawing the smeared pre-cum up the shaft and to the head, flicking the fluid over the tip with measured control.  His head tipped back against the glass, the cool spot against the back of his skull sending a sharp shiver down his spine, and his other hand fell to the hem of his skivvy shirt and yanked it from place, drawing it up over his midriff and exposing more flesh to the cold, recycled air. 

Without the heat of Kaidan’s body against his own – clothed chests kneading against one another, hot breaths skirting along one another’s necks, strong hands grasping at fabric and skin and anything else they could reach – only the hand fisting over the head of his erection was warm.  The coil low in his gut tightened further with each stroke, and he bit his lip, straining to suppress the groan that threatened to escape into the cold air.

He could imagine it all so clearly.

Kaidan holding him close, Kaidan trailing his hands over every inch of his body, Kaidan whispering short words and breathing hushed moans into his ear, Kaidan kissing him with the warmth and comfort and sincerity that was so sorely lacking in every other aspect of life.

Kaidan taking his flesh in hand, Kaidan slicking the pre-cum shared between their hard lengths, Kaidan stroking them together with impeccable strength and speed, as though their bodies were two puzzle pieces fitted perfectly together.

Kaidan groaning into a heated kiss as they came together, Kaidan bracing him with a firm grasp as he writhed under that release, Kaidan smiling at him with unspoken affection, whispering the words of love that Shepard had refused to hear from him.

Shepard stood there with his back bent at an odd angle, one leg placed ahead of the other, shoulders braced against the glass, and he shivered, his hand moving with renewed fervency and his mouth opening to finally release the long moan that had lingered on the tip of his tongue for all that time.

“ _Kaidan_ —”

And with the final slick strokes over the head, he trembled through his motions and came, spilling viscous cum onto his hand and abs, his breathing ragged and his skin glazed with a sheen of sweat.  His body threatened to give way, muscles tensing and relaxing over and over with the tiniest aftershocks of orgasm, but he managed to hold himself upright and sink back against the glass, letting his other hand slowly unclench from the folded fabric of his mussed uniform.

Every image of Kaidan persisted even when he closed his eyes and rode out the last waves of climax.  Every embrace, every kiss, every smile – so perfect and captivating and indisputably _Kaidan_.  He let his head drop forward, opening his eyes only when the images finally retreated into the darkest recesses of his mind.

He headed for the washroom and ran the tap on the sink to rinse the thick fluid from his stomach and hand.  When he looked up, his own tired eyes returned the glance from the other end of the mirror, and he finally braced his hands on the edges of the sink and glared at his reflection.  Every crease upon his brow, every residual twitch of his lip, and every small stain on his uniform were irrefutable evidence that could not be so easily washed down the drain.

He knew why he had done this.

He knew why he had made this decision.

And he closed his eyes to his reflection, knowing exactly what had shattered that façade.

_It’s all true._


	16. Fall

There were three moments in his life that Kaidan wished he could forget: the first life he saw taken, the first life he had to take, and now this – this endless destruction, this callous uncertainty, this horrific defeat.  He wished he could forget the expression on Shepard’s face as the commander stood there and watched Thessia burn.

The furrow of his brow, the hard set of his jaw, and the agonizing guilt in his eyes would forever haunt Kaidan.  How Shepard stood, silent, and watched the fires consume already-toppled buildings, how he choked on his breath as though every acrid plume of smoke was wafting up from the destruction just beneath his feet, how he bit back a defeated sound when another Reaper descended from some unfathomable region of space to decimate the society – the people – in front of his eyes.

They had all watched, powerless to stop it, as Kai Leng’s gunship fled, taking the prothean data and all remaining hope with it.  They could all easily see the fall of a civilization that was occurring directly before them.  And yet, even Liara, whose home world was burning and whose people were being slaughtered in droves, made the effort to put a consoling hand on the shoulder of Shepard’s armor, seeking to comfort _him_ from the heat of blazing debris, the stutter of scattered explosions, the staccato of gunfire, and the silent cries of the dead.  But they were not all silent, not yet.

Even from several feet away, Kaidan could hear the anguished call, a desperate and unanswered plea for help, that emanated from the communicator in Shepard’s ear, and he shivered when he heard the faintest echoes die in the air, in the distance between them.  He could only imagine what the shriek directly in Shepard’s ear must have done – penetrated his every mental line of defense, shattered his resolve, obliterated what remained of his courage – and only when Shepard’s dulled blue eyes fell to the ground, already bloodstained and crumbling beneath his feet, did the commander turn and walk away from it all and accept that he had failed.

He had failed his mission.  He had failed the asari councilor, the asari people, and the asari home world.  He had failed Liara.

He had failed Kaidan.

And here, now, he faced his nightmares as plain as day: loud cries drifting about his ears as though they were distant memories of hope long forfeited, fire burning through every lost home and every halted life, visions of failure that blurred around the edges with uncertainty and fear.  He felt like retching.  He wanted to vomit, if only because it might have rid him of the persistent ache low in his gut, the festering twinge of guilt.

Here, now, he paid the price of all of his choices.

The return to the _Normandy_ was silent.  Shepard remained seated in one of the jump seats at the back of the shuttle for the duration, leaning forward with his forearms over his knees, hands clasped together, head tilted down, eyes closed to the silence that hung in the air like a thick fog.  He heard every piercing cry.  He heard every desperate prayer.  He heard every hopeless surrender.  And he sat there, silent and still as death, with his gauntleted hands clenching together as though they had to restrain one another from some drastic action he would never know.

And nothing had prepared him for the nauseating feeling of his heart sinking into his stomach when he saw the intervallic orange flash and heard the demanding chime from the console in the vid comm room.  He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame for support, eyes fixed somewhere between the console and the floor, for what felt like hours – until he could no longer bear it, until he feared he might actually vomit.

The instant he saw the holographic form of Tevos and listened to the cracking of her voice over the unstable comm link, he knew there was nothing to hide behind any longer.  All of his composure was gone.  All of his strength and will and determination had collapsed in a heap at his feet, a pile of broken pieces, shreds of their former selves, uncontrollable in the sheer chaos they created.  And he leaned against the console, arms extended and hands clutching its edges for support as his head tipped down, unable to look the hazy image of the councilor in the eye as he told her that the mission had failed.

He listened to her voice crack, this time with dread and distress, as she clambered for words to respond.  He listened to her struggle to find the faintest sliver of hope within the knowledge that her home world and her people had fallen.  And he looked up in time to see her end the transmission in the middle of the only words he could draw up from the sunken depths of his gut.

“I’m… sorry.”

Every hollow whisper, wafting out from the darkest recesses of his mind into a waking nightmare, was now a wailing death cry, over and over.  His words had come out soft, muddled, but it had felt like he was screaming them over the incessant noise.  And the only response he had received was silence.

So he steeled himself as best he could and turned away to leave the console behind.

And when he walked out to the war room, he was stoic and fixed and determined, pretending not to be numb from the neck up, feigning some fragment of control, and the act did as designed: no one looked at him with sympathetic eyes, no one outwardly showed any compulsion to issue him some platitude or tiny reassurance, no one knew he was falling into the abyss with no possibility of escape.  No one knew he was succumbing to his own weakness.  No one except Kaidan.

He could never fool Kaidan.  He had never been able to.  And he did not want to.

Kaidan watched the forced resolve on the commander’s face as he issued new orders, dispensed words that were short and curt, and dismissed his team without looking away from the flickering map in the center of the room.  And as Shepard stood there while his crew filtered out through the doorway behind him, Kaidan watched the quiver in his arms, the unsteady curl of his fingers on the console’s edge, the reflection of those flashing red lights in the lines on his face – every lingering frustration and fear breaking through the surface of his practiced façade when he was certain no one could see him.  No one except Kaidan.

Shepard turned his head, glancing up at him only once, and then Kaidan had to look away from that expression, the same one the commander had worn as he stood amidst the flames and ruin and death, raw guilt and regret and fear on display that all tacitly begged Kaidan to let him be as he was, if only for a moment longer.

So Kaidan left.  He went to the Engineering Deck and spoke with Adams.  They replayed stories of Liara and the terrible way her mother died years ago, finding a morbid sort of commonality in avoiding any discussion of Shepard or the mission and instead focusing on the one crewmember whose guilt and regret and fear were acceptable in the darkest hours of the war.  She had watched her home world fall.  She had watched the destruction of her people.  She had every reason to break down. And perhaps she had already done so during the time that they stood there and discussed how her world had buckled around her.

By the time he decided to speak to Liara himself, she was on her feet and standing at the terminal in her office, her face lit by the dozens of display screens that lined the starboard wall, and when she cast a sideways glance in his direction, Kaidan stopped where he was, halted midway between her and the closing door.

“You, uh…” he started, but the sentence quickly collapsed on itself, unsure of how it should proceed and with no particular destination in mind.  He cleared his throat and tried again: “You doing okay?”

To his surprise – he could not be certain whether it was pleasant or otherwise – she smiled, albeit weakly and with complementary creases at the corners of her eyes, still swollen from dried tears that had never been properly wiped from her face.

“Yes, thank you,” she said.  “Shepard and I talked.”

Kaidan took a deep breath, releasing it on a long exhale that failed to bring him the relief he wanted.  Shepard had spoken with her, allayed her fears, eased her guilt… and she had smiled at Kaidan when he walked in, fractured and strained but alive and enlightened with purpose just the same.  Whatever words Shepard had so carefully chosen for her must have been just what she had needed to hear.

“Good,” he said.  “That’s— that’s good.”

She kept her eyes fixed forward on the terminal as she said, “Yes, helping the refugees is something I can do now.  The asari aren’t lost… not while I can help them.”

Kaidan shook his head, a gesture intended only for himself, but Liara’s smile faded from her face as though she had seen it.

“Kaidan,” she said, her hands stilling over the holographic keyboard, her gaze turning up from the bright display screen just above it, “there was so much pain in his eyes.  He tried so hard to hide it from me – to be strong for me – but he couldn’t.  Not completely.”

“We didn’t get the data,” Kaidan said, much more bluntly than he would have liked.

If Liara heard his statement, she acted as though she had not, and Kaidan flinched when he received her response.

“Even now, he’s struggling to be strong, Kaidan.”

Kaidan felt his brow furrowing, but he made no effort to stop it.

“I know.”

His words were just as blunt, and yet they were razor-sharp, cutting through the air with such ease that it was nearly sickening.  But when he again caught sight of that weak smile slowly creeping over her lips, her eyes gentle and yet piercing and perceptive, he wavered on his feet and waited.

“If that’s true, then I will get back to work,” she said.  “Please excuse me.”

Liara turned her attention back to the terminal, and Kaidan turned on his heel and left the room. But he hesitated mid-step and listened to the pneumatic hiss of the door close behind him when he caught sight of Shepard across the hall.  He was walking away from the med bay’s closing door, his gait hurried and shaken and his strides long and desperate, his head tilted down toward the floor to avoid every crewman’s gaze and sympathetic word, and Kaidan merely stood and watched until Shepard finally disappeared around the bulkhead that separated the mess hall from the lift corridor.

He briefly pondered on whether Shepard had a headache – understandable, given the day’s events – but quickly let the thought slip from his mind, because it ultimately did not matter; but still he strode across the hall and into the med bay to find Chakwas standing there, datapad in hand and eyes leveled at it with solemn fixation that he had never previously seen from her.

“Dr. Chakwas,” he started, and he paused there until she looked up at him. “I, uh… couldn’t help but notice that Shepard—”

“You are aware of doctor-patient confidentiality, Major Alenko,” she interjected, her lip curling at one corner with either surprise or feigned happiness. It was a lighthearted tone that seemed so foreign, so unwelcome in the atmosphere of the room, of the ship – of reality – and Kaidan grimaced when he heard it.  “Oh, no need to look at me so,” she continued, lowering her arm to the side.  “I only gave him some painkillers.  I understand that he took a rather nasty tumble on Thessia.”

Kaidan swallowed his initial thought, then answered, “Yeah, he did.”

“I think we both know he would never admit to it, but there was a twinge in his arm that he couldn’t quite keep from showing on his face,” she added.  “He’d have likely played it off as nothing and refused if I had given him half the chance.  Still, I rather suspect it was Liara who convinced him to pay me a visit.”

“I’ll thank her for that later,” Kaidan said.

Chakwas let the moment linger in the air: this awkward conversation, this strive for normality in the midst of a burden so heavily weighing upon the entirety of the crew, but none so much as it bore down upon Shepard’s shoulders.  She glanced away, as though checking the door for the remotest possibility of interruption, and finally turned away and headed for her desk.  Kaidan took a few cautious steps to follow her, but hesitated when she reached for an inconspicuous container on the floor and stood back up, the datapad abandoned on the surface of the desk and an extravagantly-labeled bottle newly occupying her hands.

“The commander and I had an agreement,” she said.  “We’d share a bottle of Serrice ice brandy every year.  This time, it was my turn to buy.”  Her hands lowered slightly, thin fingers still cradling the bottle like a fond memory.  “But he told me to save it for our victory over the Reapers.  And yet, we might not have the chance…”

Her voice trailed off, and Kaidan waited in silence.

“…So it seems appropriate now,” she finally continued, her sentence catching at the end on a hitched breath.  “If you would, Kaidan, please take this to him.  Share it with him.  He would do well with some good company right now.”

Kaidan held his hands up halfway, reluctant to take it when it was offered, embarrassed that she would surrender her private stash to him, but mostly concerned about the implications of what she was asking.  He opened his mouth to speak, but he stuttered on a few half-answered uncertainties and finally closed it in surrender.

“If you’re worried about mixing alcohol with the painkillers, well… don’t be,” Chakwas said.  Then her expression fell forlorn.  “I doubt he’s actually taken them.”

Kaidan swallowed hard, took the bottle from her, and left the med bay, feeling the weight of the liquor in his hands only when the door had closed behind him and he was left with a decision to make.

For him, it was an easy choice.  Foolish though it was, it was so incredibly easy.

When the lift door closed in front of him, Kaidan looked up, as though EDI were there, watching him – and perhaps she was.

“EDI, is Shepard in his cabin?” he asked.

“Yes, he is,” she answered.

“Is his door unlocked?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Thanks.”

If Kaidan could allow himself to have one hope left, it would be the tiny wish that Shepard had left the door unlocked intentionally.  He tapped the display panel on the lift controls and waited.

When the elevator door opened at Deck 1, he hesitated where he was, merely observing the green locking mechanism of the cabin door as though he expected it to change right before his eyes, as though Shepard would have known that he would show up at this moment, as though Shepard might have realized his mistake and locked the door at the perfect time to shut Kaidan out completely.

But, despite the thought that rapidly sapped what hope remained, he headed for the door, knocked on the metal frame to one side of it, and again waited in silence.

And then the sectional door opened, and Shepard stood before him in the same silence.

Shepard did not invite him in.

Kaidan did not ask if he could go in.

There was no need.  They read each other’s minds through wordless glances that meant everything.

Shepard turned on his heel and walked back into the familiar cold air of the cabin, and Kaidan followed.  He nearly stopped when he caught sight of the unopened case of painkillers that had been cast aside on Shepard’s desk, a vehement objection to the idea that he should mask his own suffering.

Shepard stopped at the top of the short staircase, and when Kaidan wordlessly offered the bottle to him, he glanced down at it for a moment and then drew his gaze immediately up, lip pinched at one corner and brow furrowed as though it were some cruel joke – but he took the bottle anyway.  He was too tired to fight it, too anguished to protest it, but the ember of frustration lingered in the wavering flicker of light in his eye, granting Kaidan only a glimpse before he turned away.

He retreated into the quiet corner of his cabin with the same shudder in his step that he had unwillingly endured on Thessia. He nearly collapsed on the couch at the lower level, where he leaned forward with his elbows digging into his spread knees as he hastily uncapped the bottle of brandy.  Kaidan took a seat on the cushion beside him, withholding the breath of relief that brewed in his lungs when Shepard did not reject the action in some way.  Instead, he had to hold down a surprised gasp when Shepard looked up at him, expression blank, eyes dull – only the shadows of his strength remained embedded in the sharp lines of his face, the long-ignored stubble on his jaw and chin, and the hard line of his lips pressed firmly together.

Shepard turned his head away, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back to take a long swig from the bottle, and Kaidan watched the unsteady bob of the Adam’s apple on that craned neck as Shepard struggled to avoid choking on the combination of bile burning in his throat and brandy cascading through it on its way down.  Kaidan said nothing as the bottle fell from Shepard’s mouth, a few forgotten drops soon carelessly wiped away by Shepard’s unoccupied hand, a glance soon leveled at him through blue eyes that opened to find even the dim lights much too bright.

Shepard offered him the bottle, and Kaidan took it but quickly to set it aside on the center table.  He had not brought tumblers, and he was not entirely certain whether or not he should partake in sharing that bottle.  But he did not have time to dwell on it, as Shepard’s words soon caught him by surprise.

“If you’re here to tell me that I did everything I could, don’t bother.”

Kaidan shook his head and replied, “Good thing that’s not what I’m here for, then.”

“Kaidan, I really don’t want to talk right now,” Shepard said, his eyes falling toward the opened bottle and soon finding the cap that had been recklessly cast aside onto the floor.  “I don’t want to think.  I don’t want to do anything.”

“I understand.”  Kaidan’s words were so flat, so practiced from repetition and so stoic from shattered expectations that it made Shepard cringe.  “Tell me to go and I will.”

“No.”  _Every time I do that, I regret it._   “Stay with me, Kaidan.  Please.”

“Then look at me, Shepard.”

And when Shepard looked up at him, Kaidan shuddered in his seat.  He was focused, determined to meet Kaidan’s eyes as he deserved, but his expression was fractured, a cracked mirror reflecting every precarious emotion in the jagged lines on his face.  Even now, he was trying so hard to be strong.  Even now, he was slowly breaking apart.

“I am,” he finally said.

Kaidan hesitated on a brief, painful thought.  But, as much as it suddenly felt as though he were kicking Shepard while he was down, there was no turning back.

“I only want— _need_ to know one thing.”

Shepard took the bottle and let the base rest on the top of his thigh.  “Name it.”

Kaidan leaned forward, placing his forearms over his knees.  “I need to know where I stand.”

And Shepard smiled, the weakest, most abject smile that Kaidan had ever seen from him.

“Right beside me, where you’ve always been.”

Kaidan shrugged his shoulders.  “Do you even want me there?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Shepard watched him stumble through the word in disbelief, two syllables drawn out for far too long and for reasons too painful.  Kaidan needed words.  He had always needed words.  And he deserved them wholeheartedly.  He deserved Shepard’s honesty, not some broken façade, not some fabricated explanation, and he deserved so much more than that.

So he downed a good third of the bottle, set it aside on a hard swallow, and then opened his mouth.

“Listen, Kaidan.  I know you’ve been patient, far too much so.  You’re too goddamn forgiving for your own good sometimes.  You’ve been through hell with me.  And I can’t just let that go.  I can’t let you walk away thinking that I ever meant to hurt you.”

“Then, why?”

“Why haven’t I given you a straight answer, you mean?”

“Why any of this?  What are you so afraid of?”

Shepard contemplated reaching for the bottle, his hand left suspended halfway to it, feeling the phantom graze of Kaidan’s eyes bearing down upon it in the halfhearted effort to lose control, and finally he let his arm collapse at his side.

“Everything.”  The word festered in the air: an admission of guilt, a confession of fear – the price of his choices, every secret regret laid bare in the space between them.  “It’s everything, Kaidan.”

“What?”

Shepard bit his lip and let it slide unpleasantly back into place from beneath the pull of a dulled canine.  He stared at the half-emptied bottle abandoned on the table, bit back the strong taste that had lingered so effectively on his tongue, and gave Kaidan every word he could muster.

“Watching my plans fall apart and the galaxy collapse in a heap around me.  Facing every death and every nightmare and knowing there’s nothing I can do.  Hoping that I could have just one thing be perfect and right, only to find out that it was terrifying, some wild emotion I couldn’t control because I couldn’t just fucking relax and let it happen.  I just had to keep thinking, no matter how much I wanted to stop… I just had to think it was something never meant for me, that it was some distraction that Commander-fucking-Shepard shouldn’t let himself fall into.  It was never a lack of faith in you – it was all on me.

“I wanted to think you were just looking for some certainty, just like I was.  Thought maybe that’s why you were clinging to the familiar, like people tend to do in the middle of a war.  But I pushed you away.  That was all on me.  Then I lashed out at you.  That was all on me, too.

“And it was horrible to watch myself act that way, knowing that it was my own damn fault and still thinking that I could keep you at a distance without letting go.  What does that say about me?  What does it say about me that I took all your trust and honesty and tried so hard to convince myself that I could get a quick, meaningless fuck out of it?

“I’ve put you through hell.  I’ve added to your scars.  I couldn’t— wouldn’t let myself see what was right in front of me.  I tried to call it everything but what it was.  I tried to get rid of the feeling.  I can’t even say I had good intentions because they were fucking selfish.  I wanted it all to end, but I didn’t want it to end.  It made no sense.”

Kaidan waited in silence.  He had no words to respond in Shepard’s hesitation, so he relegated himself to watching the discomforted twitch of Shepard’s lip and the unsettled flicker of his eyes.  In uniform, Shepard was only a man – no armor to guard him, no shield to bear the brunt of his responsibility – and, freed from the thick metal plating, he was the barest he had ever been.  Shepard shook his head, swaying with an unstable thought that drew the embedded lines further across his face.

“Saying that I made the right decision was easy,” he finally said.  “Knowing that I didn’t was hard.  I regretted it the moment I said those words that day on the Citadel.  And ever since then, I’ve said and done everything I could’ve to avoid facing the truth.  But taking the easy route has only failed me in every way possible.  The right decision is usually not the easy one.  I watched myself fall all over again, and I… and I pushed it away.  I pushed _you_ away.”

Kaidan felt his heart stop while his mind raced ahead without it.  How long had Shepard been waging this war with himself and exhausting his own faculties to the point of collapse?  Kaidan opened his mouth to speak, but Shepard, whose eyes were still fixed on the tabletop before him, choked on a forgotten chuckle that threatened to break down into a sob.

“But I can’t lie to you – to myself,” he said.  “Not anymore.  I could say it a million times over and it would never be enough, but if it means anything at all, I want you to know… I’m sorry.”

Kaidan watched him through the apprehensive sheen over his eyes.  “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me about this?” he finally asked, his voice cracking and his words stumbling over every fractured syllable.

Shepard finally looked up at him.

“You know, I asked myself that same question when we were sitting there at Apollo’s.  I wondered why you wouldn’t just talk to me, why it was so hard to get whatever it was you were feeling off your chest.  But then you did it.  You said everything you wanted and you meant it.  You don’t have any delusions about who you are and what you want.  You’re always true to what you believe in.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy your strength.”

Kaidan had always believed Shepard to be the one with an impeccable way with words – how easily he selected his words, how much others respected his decisiveness and certainty – but here, in this moment, his words were raw and pained and even envious.  Shepard turned his head away, his lips strained with the effort of keeping those words in check, still burning on the tip of his tongue and acidic like bile, and his head dropped into his hands, fingers spreading over his buzzed scalp and finding nothing to grasp for purchase.  He was ashamed of himself; he was drowning in the reality of his own weakness bared to the only other man who might ever see it.

“And now I’ve fallen so far,” he said, words spilling from between parted lips on a breath and a sigh.  “I’ve failed.  I’ve failed everything.  I’ve failed you.”

“You didn’t fail me, Shepard.  I just, uh…”

“No, I did.”  His hands fell from his scalp and tangled together somewhere between his spread knees.  “I’ve spent too much time regretting my decisions and not enough time fixing them.  That’s all I can do now.”  He picked his head up, meeting Kaidan’s eyes with a split-second of blue shine accenting his deep gaze.  “That’s all I want to do now.”

Kaidan tilted his head slightly.  “So… you know what you want?”

“Yeah.”

It was an action too swift to notice until it had already happened.  Shepard had taken Kaidan’s hand in his own, battle-worn and callused fingers wrapped around an upturned palm, clutching warm skin with such determination that it made Kaidan shiver.  Shepard gripped tighter, meeting Kaidan’s eyes with his own, reveling in the certainty of this tiny moment.  From lost moments when a finger placed on the trigger – only one choice to make, only one simple action needed to make it a reality – was all the certainty he needed, he found them again here, now, in Kaidan’s hold and in Kaidan’s eyes.

“This.  You being here at my side.  It’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.  You mean a lot to me, more than anyone ever has.  I can’t deny it, Kaidan.  I just… after all this time, I know that I—”

His words collapsed on themselves, breaking into chaotic fragments of thoughts and feelings, and he struggled to maintain eye contact with the man so intently focused on him, so patient and honest and perfect and—

“I’m so sorry, Kaidan.”  His breathing grew ragged, and every struggle to force his words sent him spiraling further into the abyss.  “Maybe I’m just a goddamn coward who can’t stop fucking up.  I fucked this up. I fucked everything up.  I’m sorry I pushed you away.  I’ve been afraid of the truth.  And I was wrong about all of it.  I’m sorry…”

He could not think, and he did not want to. He could feel the warmth of Kaidan’s hand, he could see the new light in his eyes, and he could breathe the air shared in the tiniest spaces between them, but his breaths were hitching with every fractured thought that threatened to bear down upon his shoulders and with every intense surge of remorse that burned like a destructive fire in the pit of his stomach.

“I-I’m sorry, Kaidan…”

He was nearly choking on his words, the stranglehold of his guilt and regret clenching over his throat until he could no longer breathe.

“K-Kaidan, I— I’m… I-I’m sorry—”

“Shh…”

Kaidan drew him into his arms, lifting a hand to tilt Shepard’s head down to rest upon his shoulder.  They sat there on the couch, side by side, closer than ever in the starchy grazes of fabric and the smooth strokes of their hands against one another, and Shepard’s buzzed hair brushed against Kaidan’s cheek in this embrace, in this moment of quiet stillness in the midst of all the chaos.  And as Shepard settled against him, hand curling ever tighter around his, he could feel the shared pulse between their fingers.

_I need you.  I need your voice.  I need your strength.  I just need you._

Commander Shepard fell from grace, and John Shepard fell into Kaidan’s arms.

But here, now, he was so much more than he had ever been.  He closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling, the warmth, the emotion that spoke volumes over the silence that had fallen just the same.  And Shepard was exactly where he wanted – _needed_ – to be.

Maybe it was because the alcohol was starting to take effect.  Maybe it was because it was Kaidan.

_Maybe it’s because I’m done asking ‘why.’_

Kaidan held him in silence, Shepard’s head tucked into the crook of his neck, Shepard’s stubble brushing backward against the stitching of his uniform, but there was no movement – only stillness that mimicked death with disconcerting accuracy.  Only the warmth of his skin, the steady breaths of his lungs, and the methodical beats of his heart indicated life from the ruined soul housed within.

Shepard embraced it all, turned his head further in, breathed in his scent and felt his concern, and he spread his hands at the small of Kaidan’s back to draw him closer, holding on to the stability and warmth for all he could.

Maybe Shepard would never escape his burden: the weight of the galaxy, the stranglehold of duty, and the pressure of expectation.  But, holding on to the strong body beneath the palms of his hands and pads of his fingertips, he was steady, stable, certain.  Shepard surrendered every broken thought and every fractured feeling to him, and Kaidan took them on, piece by piece, reconstructing them into feather-light touches, into soothing strokes of skin, into a warm embrace – tiny moments that made Shepard glad he was alive rather than suffocating under the weight of guilt for those who no longer were.

In Kaidan’s arms, the silent stillness did not so much mimic death as it did breathe life into the space they shared, in their firm grasps and gentle breaths and steady pulses, in two broken souls fitted together and united as one.

And for a single intense moment, they were infinite.


	17. Wait

Shepard had asked him to stay.

It should have been everything that Kaidan wanted.  It should have been pure happiness with no room left for questions, but there he was, lying in his uniform on Shepard’s bed, holding the commander in his arms and wondering what hasty thought had led him there, as he had been for hours – or for what had felt like hours.  With Shepard’s sleeping form held against him, head tucked under his chin, nose pressed into his neck, and arms loosely draped around his torso, Kaidan stared at the fish tank at the opposite wall for what might have been an eternity.

Shepard had succumbed to the alcohol and his own exhaustion – not necessarily in that order – and he had asked Kaidan to stay.  He had asked Kaidan to hold him, to merely let him rest in that warm embrace for whatever duration he needed, and he had fallen asleep at some point that Kaidan would never know.

It was a chaste hold, bodies held together by a feeling that defied explanation and refused definition, but warm and still and secure just the same.  Shepard’s shallow breaths wafted against Kaidan’s neck, stubble shifting against the fabric of Kaidan’s uniform with the subtlest movements of his jaw as he drifted between dreams and nightmares, all impossible to tell from the silence that Shepard left behind in reality.  And Kaidan lay there, watching the fish swim in patterns that seemed equally aimless, letting himself get lost in the fraction of space between the man in his arms and the man in his own waking dreams.

He replayed Shepard’s latest apology over and over in his head, every fragmented confession chasing the truth that had been buried for far too long.  He had never expected Shepard’s honesty to be so brutal, so raw and ashamed of itself for its own harsh reality, and yet, perhaps there was some solace in being the one person who knew what separated Shepard from the perfect man of legend.

Hearing the truth had hurt, but not nearly as much as the lies had.

And when Shepard woke with a start, hands twitching at his waist and head jerking against his chest and mouth forcing a choked breath from already-spent lungs, Kaidan realized that Shepard still paid the price of his choices in his nightmares – in dreams of death and failure, in voices that refused to be drowned out by the lies he told himself.

Shepard slowly relaxed into the hold, turning his head further in until his cheek rested against Kaidan’s covered collarbone, and breathed a long sigh as his eyes fluttered to a brief close, seeing the last remnants of his nightmare only in the darkness behind his eyelids.  When he opened his eyes again, he let his hands slide from their loose grips at either side of Kaidan’s waist and then folded his arms, tucking them into the newly bared space between his chest and Kaidan’s.

He needed a moment to let reality settle into place, and Kaidan merely held him and waited.

Kaidan had waited for this moment for so long.  He should have been content where he was, but even he could not rid Shepard of his persistent nightmares, of every dream in which silent whispers spoke of his failures and told him he had always been wrong.  And yet, this was likely the closest Shepard had gotten to a good night’s sleep in weeks.  Maybe months.  Maybe years.

And then Kaidan felt the edges of a smile pulling against the fabric of his uniform, the word _Kaidan_ wafting about his neck, so tiny, soft, and weak that he swore he had simply imagined it.  Kaidan held him tighter, Shepard’s arms again settling at his waist, Shepard’s breathy half-laugh nearly breaking into a sob of both reprieve and happiness, and tilted his head down and clenched his eyes shut and swore that he must have imagined the broken words that then slipped through his own quivering lips.

 _I’m here_.

At that moment, he knew: he had never stopped waiting for Shepard.

He waited while Shepard reluctantly pulled himself away from that warm embrace and muttered something like ‘duty calls.’  He waited while Shepard drew up his omni-tool and squinted at the display overlapping his forearm.  He waited while Shepard rose to his feet and said he had to meet with Liara.

Shepard left, and Kaidan waited.

He continued to wait while Shepard returned to his routine.  He continued to wait while the _Normandy_ made the mass relay jump to the Serpent Nebula.  He continued to wait while the _Normandy_ docked at the Citadel and Shepard disembarked without a word to any of the crew – without a word to him.

Kaidan made the same effort, taking to the bright, artificial lights of the Presidium with an aimless lilt in his step as he proceeded through a few familiar levels and watched people and glanced through the windows of various shops.  In his directionless haze, he meandered back to the Presidium Commons, where he spotted Liara at the lower balcony at the other end of the Meridian Place Market.

Kaidan moved to stand beside her, placing his hands on the metal railing and leaning forward, letting his eyes scan over the last remnants of the Cerberus coup attempt: some structures were still warped and some edifices charred by fire, some broken glass and scrapped metal still littered the ground on every level of the Presidium, and some signs and displays still flickered on and off.  But, for all the reminders of struggle and destruction, there was life everywhere.

“Beautiful view, even now,” he said.

Liara turned her head to look at him.  “Yes, it certainly is,” she replied, and then she turned back and leaned forward against the railing to mirror his posture.

But Kaidan took a step back.  He suddenly wished that Shepard would have been there at that balcony, standing beside him and looking over everything that they lived to protect.

“You doing okay, Liara?”

“Better than I have been,” she answered, keeping her hands on the railing but leaning back on her heels.  “I love this part of the Presidium.  There’s something oddly calming about it.”  She glanced at him, a flash of a smile peeking out from the corner of her mouth.  “Even now.”

He folded his arms.  “Yeah.”

“May I ask what you’re thinking about right now, Kaidan?”

“Too much.”

Liara let her gaze fall to one of the fountains in the lower lake.  “About Shepard, I imagine.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “but I do need to thank you, too.”

“Thank me?”

“For asking Shepard to see Dr. Chakwas after we got back from Thessia.”

“I think we both know he wouldn’t have done so if no one said anything to him,” she said.  “But I doubt he followed any advice he received.”

Kaidan shook his head.  He did not want to tell her that she was right.

“Still,” she continued, “he looked so much better the last time I saw him, like a weight was lifted from his shoulders.  It was good to see him like that.”

Kaidan uncrossed his arms and said, “I understand that you sent him a message.”

Liara stepped away from the railing, straightened her posture, and faced him directly.  “Yes, I wanted a chance to coordinate with the asari councilor on getting the refugees resituated,” she said.

He cocked an eyebrow.  “Couldn’t you have just commed her from the _Normandy_?”

“Yes, but that would’ve been too efficient,” she replied.  “Stopping at the Citadel was preferable.”

It took a moment for Kaidan to process that answer before he understood.

With a weak chuckle and smile, he said, “Thank you for that.”

“In the war room, he was so determined to head straight for Horizon, but I was worried that he was rushing into it,” she said, letting her gaze fall away to the floor, still suffering under a troubling sight that had never left her.  “After I saw the look on his face on Thessia, I just— he needed a chance to cool his head.”

Kaidan would have had to be blind to not realize that Liara still harbored feelings for Shepard.  He remembered lower-deck rumors of her interest in the commander during their days aboard the _SR-1_ , and, although it had never been explicitly confirmed either way, he had always figured that Shepard must have turned her down at some point all those years ago.  What Shepard failed to see in her went forever unexplained, and truthfully it had never been Kaidan’s business; but the tiniest flicker of pain that reflected in her eyes whenever she spoke of him was just as painful to watch from the other end.

“I’m glad he listened to you, then,” Kaidan said, his weak smile fading completely.

“I think he realized he still had some other matters to attend to here, regardless,” she said, again lifting her eyes to meet Kaidan’s.  “Places to go, people to meet… his usual arrangement.  He said he had to meet with an old friend while she’s still on the Citadel, as well.  Perhaps when he’s done with all that he’ll do himself a favor and make the stop I suggested.”

“Yeah?  Feel like sharing with the group?”

“Information is my trade, Kaidan,” she replied as she angled her head slightly toward him, watching through half-lidded eyes as the smallest fraction of amusement again lit his face.  “I’d be a poor Shadow Broker if I gave it out freely.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “Well, you’ve got me there,” he agreed.

“I believe you’ll find out soon enough,” she said.

“I see…?”

That flicker of pain in her eyes dissipated, leaving a tiny fragment of hope in the subtlest shine, fully entrusting him with the rare sight and the weight of it.  She smiled, open and honest, and said, “Thank you, Kaidan.”

He returned the smile and put a consoling hand on her shoulder, and she nodded at him once and turned her gaze away.  When he caught sight of her brow arch in surprise, he turned his head to face the same direction.  At the opposite end of the Commons, a turian was awkwardly shuffling toward one of the tables at Apollo’s Café, where he finally took a seat and lifted the menu up to his face.

“Is that Garrus?” Kaidan asked.

“Looks like,” Liara replied.  “How odd.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t take much shore leave.”

She glanced at him, then gestured her head.  “Perhaps he’d like some company,” she said.  “I certainly did appreciate having some.”

“You going to stick around for a while?” Kaidan asked.

“No, I think I will return to the _Normandy_ for the time being,” she said.  “I still have some work to do.  The councilor had some contacts who might be able to help with coordinating refugee transport to the Citadel.”

Kaidan finally let his hand drop from her shoulder.  “Good luck, Liara.”

She returned his words with only a smile, small and yet appreciative, and then turned and began to walk away.  He watched her ascend the nearby staircase and proceed through the passageway at the upper level until she finally disappeared around the corner at the other end, and then he began to head for the café at the opposite side of the courtyard, his steps initially jarred by the familiarity of the scenario until he was close enough to see the confusion on Garrus’ face.

Garrus glanced up from the menu in time to see Kaidan sit opposite.  He had been holding it up high enough that he appeared to be hiding behind it, and Kaidan nearly chuckled as he leaned forward, elbows on the table and eyebrow arched.

Garrus set the menu on the tabletop and sighed.  “Kaidan,” he started before Kaidan could speak, failing to return the amusement that stained the biotic’s face, “I’m glad to see you and all that, but I’m actually meeting someone else.”

Kaidan’s faint smile grew wider.  “Really?”

“Yeah.”  He nervously cleared his throat.  “Tali.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  I asked, and she agreed.  Trust me, I’m just as shocked as you.”

“I’m not shocked, really.  I’m happy for you.”

Garrus shifted and leaned back in his chair.  “Thank you, I suppose,” he said.  “We’ll see how it goes.”

Kaidan folded his arms on the tabletop.  “Does this place even have dextro food you guys can eat?”

“Well, I thought it did, but now that I’ve been going through the menu, I’m not so sure,” Garrus replied, motioning toward the menu with an outstretched talon.  “Oh well.  A nice stroll together through the Presidium to some other place might not be such a bad thing.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what are you doing on the Citadel anyway?  Can’t remember the last time I saw you actually take some shore leave.”

“I could say the same for you,” Kaidan retorted.  “And, just for the record, I really don’t mind the Citadel as much as you all seem to think…”

“Oh?”  Garrus’ brow plate arched slightly.  “Care to elaborate?”

Kaidan shrugged and answered, “Shepard seemed to be under the impression that I, uh, more or less hated this place.”

“Shepard likes to keep himself in the dark,” Garrus muttered.  “Must be used to it by now, what with his head wedged so far up his ass and all.”

Kaidan’s eyes widened.  “What?”

“Never mind.”

“Hang on a second.  What did you mean?”

“I mean that for one so principled, Shepard certainly denies himself a lot.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Are we really going to have this conversation right now?”

“What conversation?”

Garrus’ mandibles extended; whether it was due to surprise or frustration was impossible to tell.  “You still don’t know, do you?” he asked, shaking his head slightly.  “Just how much Shepard needs you, that is.”

“I have some idea, but, well, uh…”  His sentence trailed off into an unsettled silence that left Garrus with the same vague idea.

“Oh, so he finally said something,” Garrus said.  “Good.  Judging by your lack of enthusiasm, though, I’m going to guess that he messed it up first.”

“Huh?”

“Shepard has been struggling with a decision for a long time now,” Garrus clarified.  “Perhaps you noticed.”

Kaidan straightened his posture.  He did not know whether he should admit to his frustrations or merely let Garrus decipher them from the lines embedded in his face, as he inevitably would in the absence of a direct answer.  He finally decided to avoid both of those options altogether.

“How long have you known that?” he finally asked.

“Long enough.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Isn’t that the type of thing you’re supposed to figure out on your own?”

“Well, yeah, I guess, but—”

Garrus lifted a clawed hand from the tabletop and made some sort of dismissive gesture, to which Kaidan bit his lip and swallowed his failing sentence.

“I don’t really make a habit of interfering in Shepard’s business unless he’s doing something remarkably stupid,” Garrus said.  “Had I known he was going to torture himself for this long, believe me, I would’ve said something more than ‘pull your head out of your ass.’”

“I know he’s had a lot on his mind with all this – the war and everything,” Kaidan said, wincing through his words.  “But still, it’s…”

“It’s been remarkably stupid,” Garrus finished for him.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You wouldn’t, but I would.”

“There’s a lot at stake here, and I get that,” Kaidan retorted, mildly surprised at the tone of his own voice, stern and determined and yet faltering through its own guilt.  “But I wish that he would’ve just talked to me.”

Garrus leaned forward, elbows propped on the tabletop, hands clutching one another in the space between the two of them as he looked Kaidan directly in the eye.

“Remember Horizon?” he asked, tilting his head slightly.  “Remember all that talking?  Remember how much you hated him then?”

Kaidan scoffed at that.  “I never hated him, Garrus.”

“No, but I’ve watched Shepard hate himself for Horizon ever since,” Garrus replied.  “You both must be thrilled that we’re headed back there now.”

“If that’s where we can track down that bastard Kai Leng, then I don’t care where the fight is.”

Garrus glanced away for a moment.  “Just try not to call Shepard a traitor this time.”

“I never said that—”

And then he looked back at Kaidan.

“That’s what he got out of it, and it tore him apart,” he said.  He leaned forward a little further but let his hands fall flat to the tabletop, and Kaidan pulled back slightly at the tacit vehemence of the action.  “I know you’ve hurt each other over the past few years, and over and over again at that,” Garrus continued, “but let me tell you something that I’ve never told anyone else.”

Garrus heaved a sigh, still in disbelief that he should have had to say this at all – and to Kaidan, for that matter – but every uncertainty, every silent moment, every unspoken frustration and worry and fear was so wearisome that he could no longer idly stand by and observe from the sidelines.

“After Horizon – after you two argued, after he said all the crap he later regretted, after he drank himself under the table – he cried.  He cried about _you_ , Kaidan… about losing you, or maybe having already lost you.  I don’t know.  Point is, no matter how much he fought himself about it, he never stopped waiting for you.”

Kaidan had no idea what to think or say or do.  That image – that man in tears over him – refused to leave his mind or his sight, and he swallowed hard, his every word lost in a muddle of unspoken thoughts and imagined actions.  He opened his mouth to speak, only to stutter a few times on words too hesitant to leave his lips, and so he disclosed the simple truth.

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

“There isn’t much to say, really,” Garrus replied.  “Whatever doubts you have, get rid of them.  If Shepard has finally told himself the truth, then you have nothing left to doubt.”

His eyes flicked to the side, and his mandibles twitched – this time definitely with frustration.

“And now I have no doubt that you have the worst timing.”

“So, Vakarian, you already had plans?” came Tali’s voice.

“N-No,” Kaidan stammered, scrambling to rise to his feet without knocking the menu off the table.  He took a few steps back and watched her take one of the other seats.  “I was just leaving, uh, just now,” he added.  “Excuse me.”

“Don’t be so serious, Kaidan,” Tali said, gesturing one hand toward the seat he had so hastily abandoned.  “Lately, we could all use some time to relax.  Stay for a while, if you’d like.”

Kaidan chanced a glance at Garrus, whose normally stoic expression silently begged _don’t do this to me_.

“No, really, I’ve got to be going now,” Kaidan said, willing more conviction into his voice.  “I was just passing by when I saw Garrus, and I wanted to get his opinion on the, uh… that one mod I saw at the shop on the other level.”

Garrus’ brow plate quirked.  “Yeah, that Mark-4 silencer scope,” he said as he turned his head toward Tali.  “It’s a real beauty.  Kaidan said he would pick one up for me.  Said he gets a Spectre discount or something.”

Kaidan eyed him intently, but Garrus would not return the gaze – quite purposefully, at that – and he finally shook his head in surrender.

“…Yeah, absolutely,” he agreed.

Tali turned her head and looked at Kaidan over her shoulder.  “Really?  How come I’ve never gotten that offer?”

“Uh—”

“I’m teasing you, Kaidan,” she said, and Kaidan swore he heard a giggle underscoring her tone.

“R-Right.  I’m… I should go now.”

He left as quickly as he could, his strides long and resolute, and he finally slowed to a halt at the top of the staircase that led to the upper courtyard, where he could no longer hear their voices or feel their eyes set upon him.  He proceeded to the lift and watched the door close before him, standing in the silence, waiting for his thoughts to settle back into reality, every thought of Shepard so rampantly darting about within the confines of the elevator and returning to his own ears as unspoken voices riddled with concern and guilt and regret.

He leaned against the metal wall, folding his arms and letting his gaze fall to the panel directly opposite, unblinking lights awaiting direction, soundless chimes awaiting input.  And he stood there, unmoving, waiting to make a decision that he had never known, when his omni-tool flashed, vaguely lighting the walls with intervallic flashes of orange until he drew up the display. He scrolled through the modules that littered the screen.  There was a new message waiting for him, simply titled _Sanity Check_.

He hesitated, leaving his index finger hovering over the space between the two words, still waiting – but for what?

He selected the message and watched as a single line of text then pulled up on the display.

> _Kaidan.  I think it’s about time we redo that sanity check.  Come up to my cabin when you get back._

It was so inarticulate, lacking in formatting and content, but it was personal, heartfelt, meaningful in its brevity and bluntness, and Kaidan could not stop the grin that finally came to his face, tracing the edges of his lips and stretching the creases at the corners of his eyes.  He tapped the module on the lift’s control panel that would take him to the _Normandy’s_ docking bay.

Shepard was waiting for him.

No matter how many times he reread the message, it continued to grant him hope.  Hope that everything he lived for and fought for would be worth every sacrifice, hope that any lingering doubts and uncertainties would be silenced – and hope that the wait would soon be over.


	18. Right

The moment that the lift door opened and he saw the cabin door’s locking mechanism glowing with an invitingly green hue was the moment that Kaidan felt his heart skip a beat and flutter against his chest.  He had been so resolute, so determined and focused, so full of anticipation and hope and even fear that it boiled over and threatened to undo what composure he had left.  He swallowed his anxiety and stepped off the lift and into the small space between the elevator and the cabin door, where he had two choices – walk away or move forward – and one decision to make.

But he had already made his decision.  He had chosen his path long before he had ever returned to the _Normandy_ , long before he had ever stood opposite Shepard and leveled a gun at him, long before he had ever awoken in Huerta Memorial Hospital with only the phantom image of Shepard hovering over him greeting his eyes when they finally opened.

He approached the door and rapped on the lightly-scuffed metal a few times, still waiting, but waiting eagerly – for Shepard’s voice, for Shepard’s words, for Shepard’s answer.

“Kaidan,” a voice called, sharp with enthusiasm, “come in.”

When the sections of the door glided apart with that familiar pneumatic hiss, he stepped forward into the cabin, a space still so foreign to him with its perpetually cold, recycled air, but the air was no longer thick with the burden of duty and the frustration of responsibility: it was relaxed, light – breathable.

The console on Shepard’s desk glowed in intervallic flashes, each a silent demand for his attention, and the rest of the flat surface was littered with datapads and paperwork, but still, Shepard was nowhere near them, having found some solace away from the endless void of duty into which he had so often stared.  Kaidan’s gaze shifted to the hamster’s cage and then to the glass cases housing Shepard’s model ship collection, newly adorned with the quarian ship at one corner and—

Kaidan bit his lip.  The model Alliance cruiser that he had built rested in the center of one case, flaws and all on prominent display.  Since that moment they shared, a lighthearted conversation that devolved into a painful discussion about Horizon and every other matter he had wanted to leave buried, he had not noticed the model newly on display, and he briefly wondered when it had been placed there.  It was not as though his last two visits to Shepard’s cabin had granted him the chance to stand still and merely observe.  Perhaps he would never know.

“Kaidan,” Shepard called, snapping him back to reality.  “Over here.”

He followed the sound of Shepard’s voice, taking the short staircase to the lower level and finding the commander seated at one end of the sectional couch in the corner.  Shepard patted the cushion beside him and an odd sense of familiarity washed over Kaidan, but it was not one he could claim unpleasant.

“Kaidan,” Shepard said again.

Every time his name left Shepard’s lips in that tone, so relaxed and at peace with itself, Kaidan suppressed the delight that threatened to break free and stain his own lips with a foolish grin.  He took a seat at Shepard’s side and let his hands fall to his knees, where his fingers curled against the fabric of his uniform.  Shepard smiled at him, open and forthright, the edges pressing into his cheeks and drawing creases over his face that were finally borne of genuine happiness.

“I couldn’t exactly get steak sandwiches,” he said, turning his head away, “but check this out.”

He turned to one side and lifted an open-top case that had been hidden from view, setting it on the table with surprising care.  Light brown bottles jutted from the case, adorned with simple labels, black with white trims and lettering and red maple leaves in the corners.  Kaidan glanced at Shepard as he straightened his posture, then let his eyes fall back to the case sitting before him.

“Is that…?”

“Liara managed to find a place on the Citadel that had some in stock,” Shepard answered.  He drew a bottle opener from one of his pockets and handed it to Kaidan.  “Still made like in the old days.  None of that ‘easy-open’ shit.  Don’t know if this is the particular Canadian lager you wanted, but, well…”

Kaidan chuckled under his breath as he took one of the bottles and uncapped it.  He handed off the bottle opener to Shepard and waited for him to do the same, and then they clinked the bottles together, a toast to everything all at once: their fight, their lives, and their smiles.

The beer was pale and golden, as light as it was smooth and malty.  Kaidan let the bottle fall from his lips, tongue unconsciously slipping between them to chase the last drops, Adam’s apple shifting on a final swallow, and then set the half-emptied bottle aside, eyes flicking toward Shepard to meet his gaze.  He smiled back at Shepard, appreciative and content, his eyes bright even under the dim lights and his shoulders relaxed in the comfort of this moment, and Shepard felt his chest tighten at the sight.

_You’re beautiful like this, Kaidan._

Shepard set his emptied bottle aside and trailed his tongue over his palate, still tasting the faintest hint of beer, and finally cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Tastes like home?”

Kaidan laughed, and, despite its roughness, it was soothing on so many levels.

“Tastes like home,” he agreed.

“Enjoy it,” Shepard said.  “Your good taste in beer has cost me more than a few credits.”

Kaidan’s grin grew a little wider.  “Would’ve paired perfectly with that steak sandwich, though,” he said.  “You’re the first human Spectre.  You couldn’t have pulled some strings?”

Shepard faltered, his gaze drifting away from Kaidan’s eyes and fixing on the aquarium at the wall behind him.  “To be honest,” he started, brow knitting as though in retribution for the blunt tone of his voice, “I wasn’t thinking quite clearly.”

Kaidan tilted his head slightly.  “Yeah?  What’s been on your mind?”

“The next mission.”

It was partially true.  He had also been thinking about Kaidan, but he figured that part was obvious.  Kaidan watched him, searching the blue eyes that were still focused elsewhere, wondering if Shepard merely did not want to say the word _Horizon_ out loud – understandable, given what weight it carried for both of them – but that reluctance to meet his gaze made Kaidan’s smile fade into a worried frown.

“Well, I’m glad you took the time to stop at the Citadel,” he said.

Shepard finally looked back at him.  “It was a good idea,” he agreed, his shoulders relaxing with the change of subject.  “I guess I needed to slow down for a bit.  I had some things to do there, anyway.  I met with Miranda—”

“Who?”

Shepard studied the confusion that marred Kaidan’s face.  “Oh,” he started, scratching at the back of his neck.  “She was my XO when…”

He waited for Shepard to continue, but the sentence drifted into an awkward silence, and Kaidan shifted in his seat and shook his head.  He already knew that Shepard was referring to his time with Cerberus.  He already knew that Shepard absolutely hated the very idea of talking about Cerberus with him, every hurtful word and every suspicious glance that Kaidan had ever levied at him a constant reminder of his regret.

“What did she want?” he eventually asked.

“She wanted access to Alliance resources.”  Shepard winced when he saw the uncontrolled tic in the set of Kaidan’s jaw.  “She’s not with Cerberus anymore, Kaidan.  She’s been in hiding ever since she resigned.”

Kaidan turned his head away.  He reached for the bottle he had set aside, but then he merely held it, waiting.

“You trust her?”

“I do,” Shepard answered.  “She’s trying to help her sister.  I don’t like the idea, either, but…”

When Shepard again let his words fade into silence, Kaidan took a drink, only opening his mouth to speak after an unpleasantly harsh swallow.

“So you gave her access,” he said, stoic and inert – knowing.

“I did.”

“Okay.”

Shepard felt his eyebrows unconsciously arch with surprise.  “You gonna’ trust her, too?”

Kaidan set the emptied bottle on the table and replied, “I trust _you_ , Shepard.”

That look.  Shepard hated that look.  It was the look that Kaidan wore when he begrudgingly accepted an order with which he had some objection or when he faced a difficult conversation.  Shepard had forced upon him too many occasions to bear that troubled expression.  And Kaidan loathed it just as much: falling back into the recurring theme of lighthearted conversations that devolved into painful discussions with entirely too much weight and too many consequences.

“Sometimes I wonder why you do,” Shepard said.

His voice was low, nearly ashamed of itself, and Kaidan shrugged his shoulders when he heard it, leaning forward with his forearms over his knees and his gaze locked on Shepard’s.

“I mean, I didn’t always, and I’ll admit that,” Kaidan said.  That tinge of regret in his eye, silently speaking to his desperation to look away but still fighting to maintain eye contact, was painful to see.  “After Horizon, after Mars, after doubting you... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Shepard quickly replied.  “You’re here now.”

“Yeah, I’m here.”  Kaidan sat up straight, never taking his eyes off Shepard’s.  “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Shepard had little time to think, and truthfully he did not want it: he was content where he was in this honest conversation, even if it had to be tainted by painful topics, and overthinking the matter at hand had never benefited him and never would.  There was still so much to say, so much to know, so much to discover about one another and in a million different possible ways… if he would just let it happen.  And it was about time he did just that.

“So, about that,” he said, willing new conviction into his voice.  “About you and me.”

“Yeah… I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

“How do we— I fix it?”

“What?”

“How do I fix it?”

Kaidan’s brow furrowed.  “Don’t take this all on yourself, Shepard,” he said.  “I’m tired of watching you do that.  I’m tired of watching you suffer alone.”

Shepard shook his head and replied, “This was all on me, Kaidan.  I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it wasn’t.”

“Then what, exactly, are you asking me?”

“I want to know what this is,” Shepard answered, leaning forward the slightest bit, nearly imperceptibly so.  “This… you and me.  What we are and where we should be.”

“Where we should be.”  Kaidan repeated those words back to him, flat and yet scornful of the very idea, a buried frustration that had been burning in the pit of his stomach soon bubbling up his throat with conviction of its own.  “I’ve got something to say, then.”

“Tell me.”

Kaidan scrutinized the genuine interest in Shepard’s eyes, and then he steadied himself as he let it all out: “This mission is huge – hell, it’s the galaxy itself – and I’ve wanted to be here with you for all of it.  So much of who I am, I owe to you, you know?  But I can’t stand it… I can’t stand watching you tear yourself apart.  You give everyone hope and keep none of it for yourself.  I want to help you.  And I want you to let me.”

“Kaidan.”  It was all Shepard could say.  He had no other words.

And Kaidan sighed, a moment of respite that was much too brief.  “I hate to say it this way, I really do, but… you’ve left me behind.”

Lessus, after the mission to rescue Admiral Koris, Rannoch, after Noveria – each one an endless stretch of impatient silence spent waiting for the man he so deeply trusted and respected and…

“I know you’ve had your reasons, but it’s never easy, Shepard.  It’s awful.  I mean, I get it, there’s a lot tied up in this mission.  But I’ve got a lot tied up in you.”

Shepard did not think before he responded. Kaidan deserved every word he could muster.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done, Kaidan,” he said.  “I know you’ve gone through so much hell in your life, and more than a fair share of that has been because of me.  I just… I don’t know what comes next.  I don’t know how I can make this right, or if I can ever make it truly right, but damned if I’m not going to try.  The galaxy may need me out there, but I need you next to me.”

“I’m here, Shepard,” he said.  “You know that I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.  And thank you.”

Kaidan raised a hand to rub the side of his neck.  “Maybe it’s— I just wanted you to know that.  After everything that’s happened, I just wanted to make sure that we got that squared away.”

The faintest of smiles traced its way over Shepard’s lips.  “We’re a team,” he said, watching the subtle upturn of Kaidan’s lip that soon mirrored his own.  “We always have been.”

“No argument here.”

“But we’re more than that.  I’ve always known that.  Maybe I was scared to admit that I found something that had never actually left.  I don’t know.”  Shepard laughed, weak and pitiful, but honest.  “Or maybe I just needed a kick in the ass.”

“Heh… well, you said it, not me.”

“Hard enough to imagine what’s waiting for us out there,” Shepard added, his smile growing a little wider.  “Even harder to imagine myself without you beside me for all of it.”

“Shepard.”

“What?”

Kaidan chuckled, but it was strangely unreadable.  “Nothing, just— yeah, nothing.”

Shepard cocked an eyebrow.  “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah, seems like there always is,” he replied, and he wore the remnants of a smile as he spoke, despite the trembling in his hands, despite the stiffness in his shoulders, despite the distant look in his eyes.  “I think about Earth, about home and everything else that’s out there.  I think about Ash.  I think about where we’ve been and where we’re going.  I think about you.  I’ve spent a long time thinking about it, and, uh… I guess I just want you to know that I’ll be here – always.”

Shepard listened to those words, the voice both in his head and all around him now loosened by alcohol and husky with raw honesty.

_Please, Kaidan… please—_

“Not much has made sense lately,” Kaidan continued.  “I’ve been waiting for something to make sense.”

His vision focused and his hands steadied.  His smile broke free of its hesitancy and ventured out into the abyss in hopes of finding Shepard somewhere deep within, just as Shepard had always secretly done for him.

“Turns out I’ve just been waiting for this.”

Shepard’s heart skipped a beat and his lungs temporarily malfunctioned, leaving him still and silent and breathless while his mind raced ahead in every direction but forward.  He was lost in the moment, in the piercing recognition of exactly what this was between them.  They could still be both brutally honest and unashamedly content.  They could still be everything they ever should have been.  It was perfect.  It was—

“Kaidan,” Shepard started, edging toward him, watching his Adam’s apple bob on a sharp swallow, “you don’t have to wait anymore.  This – us – you and me… it’s right.  It does feel right.”

“Shepard…”

The word faded into a long breath that slipped between parted lips, hitching the slightest bit at the warm touch of a hand sliding over the side of his neck, fingers curling around to the nape and thumb pressing against his temple, gentle and meaningful and yet intent, and he shuddered beneath it, beneath every sight and every sensation and every feeling that burned in his chest and radiated against his cheeks.  Another hand gripped his, callused and firm, steady and resolute, and he upturned his palm, meshing together fingers that were starting to quiver with anticipation and longing and hope.

“Kaid—”

The word halted halfway on a fractured sigh, longing for the touch, for the moment to last forever, for the shine in the brown eyes set so intently upon him to never disappear from his sight or mind ever again.  His grip grew a little tighter, his fingertips gracing the back of Kaidan’s hand with the subtlest of touches, savoring the warmth of his skin and the rhythmic pulse beneath it.  He closed his eyes, breathing, knowing, feeling – and in his waking dreams he found Kaidan reaching out to him, an outstretched hand pulling him back from the brink and into an embrace, a strong hold that meant all that it ever should have.

He drifted forward in a dream, falling into the feeling as his lips finally met Kaidan’s, a soft touch, a perfect moment.  It took him by the hand, led him off the road to hell and showed him a glimpse of heaven in this touch, this feeling of flesh on flesh, lips on lips, hearts beating together in a shared harmony all their own.  And everything outside this instant – hands sharing warm traces of skin, heads tilting toward one another, lips moving in sync in tentative motions – faded into nothing, into the blackness of space visible only between the stars, each sparkling light as bright as this moment, here, now, with no space left between the two of them.

Shepard drew his hand from Kaidan’s and lifted it, cupping Kaidan’s jaw in both hands, thumbs brushing over the graying hair at his temples and fingertips gracing the nape of his neck as they kissed, every movement blending into the next, every touch as pure and perfect as the last.

_This… it’s right.  All of it.  God, it’s so right._

Two hands fell upon him, one bracing itself at his bicep and one sliding over his waist, fingers fanning out at his lower back and trailing up the curve of his spine.  Kaidan held on to him, embraced him like he had always wanted, and kissed him with all that he had: every brush of Shepard’s stubble against his jaw and chin, every short stroke of Shepard’s deft hands over his skin, every perfect movement against his lips – all slowly unraveling him at the seams, baring his heart and soul to the one man to whom he would ever entrust them.

And then Shepard pulled back, slowly, tentatively, opening his eyes on a flutter as though waking from a beautiful dream.

“I can’t do this without you, Kaidan,” he said, voice low and steady, finally certain of everything it should say.  “I need you.  And I want to spend whatever’s left of my life with you… if you’ll have me.”

Kaidan smiled at him, that curl of the lip that suited him so well.  “It feels like such a long time ago that I was asking you the same thing,” he said.

But Shepard could not return the quirk of his lip.  “Yeah,” he whispered.

Shepard traced one thumb from Kaidan’s temple to the creases at the corner of his eye, where painful memories had been permanently engraved into his skin as worry lines.  He thought of the anxiety reflected in Kaidan’s eyes when they had sat together at Apollo’s Café, exchanging awkward glances over the tabletop as Kaidan stammered through his confession and his worry that the war had deprived him of all time – the chance to find someone.

And Shepard had stolen more of his time.  He had seized his sincerity and trust – his hope – and then walked away and never looked back, not until he had broken them into pieces and needed that steady hand to put them back together.  His gaze dropped, eyes half-lidded with shame.

“I’m sorry, Kaidan.  I wanted you to find someone, but I guess I also wanted…”

His words fell from his lips entirely too softly and died in the still air of the space newly bared between them, and Kaidan drew a hand forward to grip Shepard’s chin, tilt his head up, and look him in the eye.

“Shepard, it was never about finding ‘someone’ – it was about finding you.”

His heart surged against his ribcage.  His hands faltered and nearly fell from Kaidan’s jaw.  His chest heaved with every unspoken word that threatened to boil out of his lungs, until he could no longer bear it, until watching the sincere light in Kaidan’s eyes remain determined to shine upon him and only him became too much.

“I know,” he said, drawing himself closer, pressing their foreheads together until the tips of their noses touched and their eyes closed to the tiny space between them, “and you’ll never lose sight of me.  I’ll never leave you behind again.”

And when he angled his head and kissed Kaidan once more, Shepard filled all the space between them with soft breaths, meaningful caresses, and silent promises.  The faintest scent of beer lingered, drawn up in what little air remained between them on staggered sighs and tiny inhales, lips parting slightly wider on each kiss, each one a promise in itself.

No more questions, no more fears, no more waiting.

It had never been something that he could calculate or measure.  It had never been something that could be defined or controlled.  It had never been something that he could think through and analyze.  It had never been a conscious decision.

But it was right.  It did feel right.

His hand fell from Kaidan’s jaw and slid beneath the collar of his uniform, tracing the edges of the junction between his neck and shoulder.  He wished he had done this the right way.  His mouth pressed further, parting to release the slightest moans as their lips moved together, full of passion and meaning.  He wished he had never hurt Kaidan or made him wait or watched him suffer.  His hands gripped tighter, his lips moved more intently, and his voice was lost to the feeling of hope and purpose that spoke volumes over the beautiful silence between them.  He wished he had never denied everything that had ever been perfect and right.

He could never retract his wrong decision, but he would make the most of it now, knowing with absolute certainty that he had a damn good reason guiding all of his future decisions.

_Someone to live for._


	19. Chance

There was blood on his armor.

He stood there in the central chamber of the facility, shotgun leveled at point-blank range at the last Cerberus sniper, whose rifle fell to the floor long before he ever took the shot.  The sniper collapsed against the wall, innards spilling out through the gaping hole in the front of her armor and blood splattering the wall behind her in a starburst pattern, streaks of red trailing over every tiny indent in the concrete at the furthest points.

She slid down the wall and slumped forward into a lifeless heap, rifle shifting against the metal floor alongside the arm that had sprawled out, a forgotten muscle memory drawn out in its final nerve impulse.  The backsplash of that shotgun burst had cast long, haphazard streaks of red over his chestplate and greaves, and Shepard stood there, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet, edging back slowly only when the puddle that formed beneath the fallen sniper seeped under the ridges in the soles of his boots.

He thought back to when he had been walking through the CIC and Traynor mentioned a Cerberus attack on a communications facility on Ontarom, some horrible situation stated in passing like so many other sugarcoated failures and casualties.  He had made his decision after too much thought and set the _Normandy’s_ next destination, which, as luck had it, required that they overshoot Horizon.  If nothing else, it should have been a quick mission, and it should have given him a chance to retrain the trigger finger that had failed him so spectacularly on Thessia.

For soldiers like him, this was what they signed up for.  They signed up for the bloodshed and horrifying sights.  They signed up for the possibility of failure and the haunting nightmares and the silent death cries that weighed down upon their shoulders.  But the innocents, the refugees from the war, should have never been caught up in all that slaughter and destruction.

All the people he could not save on Earth were now buying him time with their lives.  All the lives lost on Palaven and Rannoch and Thessia – too many innocents sacrificed for a war he had been tasked with stopping.  And it was never easy.  It would never be easy.  Each mission was a difficult decision with too few choices and too many consequences.

Hackett had briefed him on the latest mission details in the shuttle bridge, and it was everything Shepard hated to hear: Cerberus had taken one of the Alliance’s secret communications facilities and its dish arrays, compromising all campaigns in the theater, and the lone technician that survived the attack was being tracked and hiding in a security bunker off-site.  Grace Sato, a civilian – an innocent – had been caught in the crosshairs of the Cerberus company tasked with hacking into Alliance systems to access secret operations protocols.

When her image had pulled up on the vid screen, she was nervous, eyes darting back and forth around an empty room, her every horror on prominent display upon her face and in the tone of her voice.  And Shepard had steeled himself and descended into that mission-focused mindset that had claimed him so easily in the past.

But with her radio silence had come the fear.

What should have been an easy mission instead became a reminder that they were in the midst of a war with themselves: with humanity and what it stood for within the galaxy.

_No.  This is just one man’s view of humanity._

Cerberus – the Illusive Man – turned people into monsters; he had seen that quite clearly on Mars.  They were indoctrinated husks, empty shells that returned gunfire only by the grace of what remained of their fight-or-flight instincts.  They fought not by choice, but by force.  They were no different from Reapers – brutes, cannibals, marauders, banshees… lives sacrificed to forces beyond their comprehension and control, and they were walking dead, mindless and bloodthirsty.  And Shepard would have shot that Cerberus sniper a thousand times over to save one innocent technician from the likes of those monsters.

_Goddamn abominations._

Still, it was human blood on his gauntlets, however corrupted it was.

He stowed his shotgun and watched in silence as the blood on the wall darkened, until suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, drawing him away from that bloody scene with a gentle, earnest touch.  Shepard nodded once at him, feeling the slight shift in his armor when Kaidan’s hand slipped from his shoulder plate, and then proceeded to the final access console, where he drew up his omni-tool and deactivated its protocols.

The shuttle cleared the area around Grace Sato’s bunker of remaining Cerberus troops, picked her up, and returned to the rendezvous point, and when they were all aboard the shuttle, Kaidan sneaked a glance or two at Shepard’s slowly faltering expression.  The momentary catharsis at extracting the innocent technician from that bunker and securing the Alliance’s communications arrays faded when the shuttle breached the planet’s atmosphere and returned to the darkness of space.

Shepard kept a steady hand on one of the overhead bars, fingers clenched around it as though they were still clutching the handle of a gun.  The subsequent detour and the return to the _Normandy_ were silent, but he was standing there, unsteady on his feet and with a dim light in his eye against the vast blackness of space.

Now, with Grace safe and on her way to a nearby Alliance station, even the recycled air of the _Normandy’s_ shuttle bay seemed fresh.  Shepard loitered at the shuttle’s open hangar door and glanced over his shoulder at Kaidan, who was busying himself with removing his armor at the locker and exchanging a few candid looks with Garrus – and he was safe, alive.  Shepard dressed down to his uniform out of earshot, brought his bloodstained armor to the decontamination chamber, drew up the display on his omni-tool, and left.

Kaidan kept his gaze fixed forward on the armor locker, feigning ignorance of the lift door opening and closing behind him, wanting with every fiber of his being to forget the surprisingly calm look staining Shepard’s face as he had walked past.  Garrus set his rifle aside on the weapons bench and began to remove one of the mods, only lifting his eyes when he heard Kaidan suddenly speak.

“Garrus, I meant to ask you about how your, uh… ‘date’ with Tali went.”

His mandibles extended slightly when he heard the strained tone of Kaidan’s voice.

“It… went,” he answered.

“Bad?” Kaidan asked, shrugging off one of his gauntlets.

“No, just awkward.”

“Not much in common?”

“Too much in common.”

Kaidan hesitated, his hand suspended halfway in removing one of his shoulder guards.  “Uh…”

“It’s hard to explain,” Garrus muttered.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“Not really worried,” Kaidan said, “just confused.”

“Never mind,” Garrus said, and he straightened his posture.  “Speaking of which, though, I believe someone still owes me a Mark-4 silencer scope.”

Kaidan chuckled under his breath.  “Yeah, that’s true.”

“I didn’t think you were one to renege on a deal, Kaidan.”

His brow knitted slightly.  “I’m not.”

Garrus turned his head, teasingly eying him from that angle.  “Didn’t think you were so touchy, either.”

“Hey, ease up, or you won’t get the thing at all,” Kaidan shot back.  “I’ll see if Cortez can requisition one—”

“What?  No, I’m kidding.”

“…Oh.”

“Hm, I had hoped you would’ve loosened up a bit after the fight.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kaidan said, bending over to unhook one of his greaves.  “I mean, I’m always glad to be back in the fight, especially against Cerberus, but I can’t help but feel like it was a diversion.”

Garrus tilted his head slightly.  “Really?  What possibly gave you that idea?”

“Well, we _were_ headed for Horizon, and… you’re messing with me, aren’t you?  Funny.”

“So that pole up your ass _is_ removable,” Garrus replied, and Kaidan grimaced.

“Never mind,” Kaidan muttered, a sigh clinging to the end of the last word.  “Forget I said anything.”

“Kaidan, I’m glad you want to talk to me, really, but I just don’t get it,” Garrus replied, lifting a clawed hand midway in some sort of placating gesture.  “I don’t really understand why you two have never gotten past Horizon.  Call me blissfully ignorant.”

Kaidan stood up straight, then hesitated where he was, hand clutching a piece of his armor like it was his last link to reality.  “It… it meant a lot, and for a lot of different reasons, I guess,” he said.

Garrus’ brow plate shifted.  “Such as?”

“I don’t know,” he said, nearly at a whispered volume.  “You were there – you saw it, right?  A lot was said.  A lot wasn’t said.  I mean, it was just too much after too long.”

“Ever wonder if you’re just overthinking things?”

Kaidan shook his head.  He knew that Horizon was a painful memory that festered in the air like the rancid stench of charred residue from spent thermal clips and Reaper blood, a battlefield in every sense, a waking nightmare that had never left Shepard. It was a constant reminder of his failure, of when they had walked away and left each other with only silence.

Every conversation that they had already had about Horizon reopened as many wounds as it healed.  Perhaps facing it was the only way that Shepard would truly forgive himself for it.  And yet, Kaidan wanted so badly to listen to Garrus.  He wanted to believe it was that simple.

Would it truly be so bad if he did?

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I tend to be,” Garrus replied.

Kaidan grinned.  “That so?”

“Do yourself a favor, Kaidan,” began Garrus, turning fully toward him.  “Stop thinking about it and let whatever happens happen.  Sometimes you make a choice and it comes back to bite you in the ass, and sometimes it surprises you in a much better way.  Sometimes you just have to know that the next one will be better.  We’ve all been dragging our feet from one mess to another, but still… there’s always the next time.”

Kaidan halted where he was, a flicker in his eye catching Garrus’ attention and yet refusing the turian’s attempt to decipher it.  “That’s— yeah, you’re definitely right about that.”

Kaidan said nothing further, and Garrus watched him go.

When the lift door closed before him, Kaidan pulled up his omni-tool and then picked his gaze up.  “EDI, did Shepard head for the war room?”

“No, he has gone to the Starboard Observation lounge,” she replied.

“Hm, odd.”  He deactivated his omni-tool and lowered his arm to his side.  “Thanks, EDI.”

He selected Deck 3 on the control panel and waited.

The memorial wall greeted him when the door opened, and he stepped away as quickly as he could, treading down the short passageway toward the familiar sectional door, toward what had once been his own space.  The door slid open, and Kaidan saw him: Shepard stood in the middle of the room, arms folded and gaze locked forward, silent amidst the dim lights overhead and the darkness of space before him.

Kaidan took a few cautious steps forward.  “Shepard?” he started, holding his next words until Shepard looked over his shoulder.  “I asked EDI where you ran off to.”

Shepard turned partway toward him, his arms falling to rest at his sides.  “Not really running, Kaidan,” he said.

Kaidan nodded and said, “Yeah, that last one was rough.”

And Shepard’s eyes fell to the floor.  “Definitely.”

Kaidan turned his head slightly, every angle backlit by the faintest hint of the stars.  “Hey…”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”  Shepard gestured his head toward the observation window.  “Just wanted to see what’s so special about this view.”

“What do you mean?”

“You claimed this room when you came back on board,” Shepard clarified.  “Wanted to know why.”

“It’s a nice view.”

Shepard held down the breathy chuckle that welled in the bottom of his lungs.  “It really is.”

There were reminders of the war everywhere.  News filtered in through both official channels and unofficial ones.  The pang of sore muscles followed him through every waking moment.  Shepard had long since been used to all of it – the invariably bad news, the persistent muscle aches, the pull of scar tissue – but only recently had he found escape within the same space.

Kaidan brought pleasant conversation, reassuring touches, and hopeful words with him wherever he went these days, and Shepard seized them all: brief kisses in stolen moments, chaste encounters behind closed doors or at the opposite end of otherwise public bulkheads, usually a quick stroke of the cheek or brush of the hand.  An accumulation of all the tiny instants that they should have shared before, now strung together into a cohesive whole in the time between missions.

No longer restless eternity spent in silent waiting, time between missions had become periods of calm interspersed throughout the dregs of war.  And, if only at those moments, he believed that a bright flicker of peace was waiting for him – for them – somewhere within the vast darkness of space just outside the _Normandy’s_ hull.

It gave him hope in the midst of war.  It showed him light in the endless expanse of darkness.

“You know,” Shepard began, turning further toward him in one smooth motion, “there was a time when I couldn’t just stand still and watch the stars like this.  I always had to be planning my next move, reviewing mission briefs, writing some fucking report – or trying to, anyway.  I never appreciated this, just… standing still, enjoying the view.”

_Standing here, standing still… I haven’t done this in such a long time._

The space between the stars had been his nightmare, the darkness that claimed him in sleep and forced the breath from his lungs in memories of falling aimlessly toward some planet’s surface, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to avoid feeling himself die.  But here, with Kaidan at his side, the stars glowed a little brighter, the lights overhead shined with purpose, and he could stand still, held together by his every word, every glance, every feeling.

The creases at the corners of his eyes softened.  “I guess I owe this to you,” Shepard said.

“I appreciate that, Shepard.”  Kaidan rubbed the side of his neck, the nervous habit that had given him away so many times before.  “I, uh… don’t know what else to say.”

Shepard shrugged his shoulders.  “Nothing else necessary,” he said.  “Just wanted you to know.”

“This place always gets me thinking,” Kaidan said, and then he had to silently laugh at himself, a mental curse for doing exactly what Garrus had told him not to do.

“Yeah,” Shepard said with the faintest upturn of his lips, though it was pinched, stuck halfway between growing into a proper smile and receding into a frown.  “This place makes me think, too, and for once, I don’t mind it.  Got something on my mind, actually.”

“Ash?”

“How did you…?”

Kaidan folded his arms.  “When I would stand here by myself, I would think about her, too.”

Shepard chuckled, but it was weak, lost in itself.  “I was thinking about the first time we were all at the Citadel, looking out over the Wards.”

“Hell of a view,” Kaidan said.  “Made you realize just how huge the galaxy is.  Every species, every culture in one place.”

“And all their goddamn politicians,” Shepard added with a grin.

“Well, yeah.”  Kaidan returned the grin.  “That, too.”

“Think she’s still out there, looking out for us?”

“She’s doing more than that.”

“Heh… yeah.  She’s always been a fighter.”

_She would’ve hated being holed up in this little room with a view._

Kaidan tilted his head slightly and uncrossed his arms.  “You miss her?”

“Yeah,” Shepard replied, voice low and soft.  “There’s been so much sacrifice already.  Too much of it has been because of my choices.”

The look on Kaidan’s face was strained, as though recalling a memory long buried, both painful and hopeful in being brought to light.  “You know,” he started, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet a few times, “my dad told me something when I got sent home after BAaT was shut down.”

Shepard eyed him for a moment, urging him on with a simple, “Yeah?”

And then Kaidan’s eyes lit up with the memory.  “He said, ‘even the right choices have consequences.’  At the time, it really didn’t help.  I mean, how was it supposed to, right?  The whole thing with Vyrnnus and… yeah, I thought I’d messed it up – my life, my future.  You know?  But my dad told me that I’d have a ‘next time.’  And I did.  I’m still getting them.  I guess that’s all we can do now… take every chance we get.”

“Yeah,” Shepard said, turning toward the window.  “We have to make them all worth it.”

“We will.”  Kaidan took Shepard’s hand, warm fingers curling around his, pulses steady in that tiny embrace.  “We’ve got a good chance— the best chance.  I know it.”

Shepard smirked, that teasing curl of the lip that Kaidan had finally come to love.

“You really are the romantic type, aren’t you?”

Kaidan cocked an eyebrow at him.  “You don’t like it?”

Shepard pursed his lips.  “I didn’t say that.”

“Then enjoy it.”

“I do.  Trust me on that.”

They stood still, watching the faintest flickers of the stars as the _Normandy_ darted through all that empty space between them, and finally Kaidan heaved a sigh.

“So… nowhere else to go but Horizon, huh,” he said, a question that inadvertently left his lips as a blunt statement.

“Yeah.”

Shepard released his hand, and Kaidan looked up at him.

“You, uh… going to be okay heading back there?” he asked.

“Kaidan.”  A brusque word, definitive and adamant – guarded.

“I’m sorry, I thought you’d want to talk about it,” Kaidan said.

Shepard scratched at the back of his neck.  He knew he had been the one to dredge up painful memories of Horizon, but this… not here, not now.  Not when the very thought of Cerberus soured the moment in its entirety.  Not when every sacrifice that day had claimed to be made on humanity’s behalf.  Not when the blood splatter was still fresh.

“There’s not much left to talk about, is there?” he asked.

Kaidan shook his head.  It was not the time or place to overthink this, the very matter that he had wanted to leave buried in the past, even if it meant that it would have merely festered out of sight and out of mind until the next painful moment raised it from the depths of obscurity.

“If you say so,” he said.

“Now you’re getting it.”

“That hurts, Shepard.”

“You’ll get over it.  I have faith in you.”

“You’re something else,” Kaidan muttered, a suppressed grin still managing to peek out from one corner of his lip.  “Let me just throw this out there, then: if I can be of any help, let me know.”

“You’ve done more than enough already, Kaidan,” Shepard said.  “Don’t worry about me.”

“Sorry,” came Kaidan’s sheepish reply.  “Habit.”

“I guess I shouldn’t complain,” Shepard said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Hm.”  A hum of approval, a husky sound low in his throat.  “In fact, I think maybe you should appreciate it some more.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Kaidan drew a hand to Shepard’s cheek, thumb pressing against his chin and fingers angling up to the hinge of his jaw, and Shepard’s lips spread into a smile, full and inviting, beckoning him into a kiss with a soft, needy breath as a promise.  They met in that space, in the light of the stars, drawn to one another by the pull of unvoiced desire, hands rising to cup one another’s jaws and lips moving in sync, no longer tentative and hesitant, but steady and certain – drawn up from the bottom of their hearts and shared in a single moment, a single breath, a single brush of lips and stroke of skin.

Shepard trailed his hands over Kaidan’s neck and to his shoulders, fingers wedging themselves partway under the collar of his uniform, and Kaidan grinned into the kiss, pressing his lips forward and opening his mouth a little further in payback.  And, maybe Shepard would forever deny it, but he moaned into the kiss, a longing murmur that drowned itself in the increasingly urgent strokes of their lips.  But when he lost his breath completely, he pulled back, his eyes opening to find Kaidan’s, brown irises darkened with desire and hands warmer against his cheeks.

“I’m already late,” Shepard muttered between breaths, his hands falling to Kaidan’s uniform, fingers tracing over the clasps in aimless motions.  “I’ve got to debrief Hackett about Ontarom.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay.  I understand.”

Shepard made a motion to press forward, but he cut himself short and retreated.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”  Kaidan let himself have one more stroke against Shepard’s cheek before his hands fell to his sides.  “I seem to recall a promise that we’d never end up standing around in this room and apologizing to each other ever again.”

“Looks like I broke it.”  _And you did, too, but…_

Kaidan smiled at him.  “I’ve already forgiven you.”

“That easily?”

“A heart’s a complex thing, Shepard.  I’ll catch you later.”

Shepard let his hands fall from Kaidan’s uniform and looked at him.  In that look, in the galaxy reflected in Kaidan's eyes, there was an endless reminder of his own humanity.  Everything he fought for.  Everything he lived for.  Everything he loved.  He was imperfectly human, but he was alive, and he was fighting.

Shepard turned away with a smile on his face.

_This is my chance to make all of it right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote from Kaidan’s father was shamelessly stolen from the Mass Effect Foundation #4 comic.


	20. Desire

Shepard had not expected to find Kaidan waiting in his cabin, but he had hoped for it.

He had stopped at the console on his desk and drawn up the display to check the latest influx of messages when he caught sight of a crop of black hair, visible through the glass case separating the upper level from the lower.  He shut off the console display and took to the short staircase at the other end of the room, and then he hesitated, one foot planted on the deck and the other on the last stair.

Kaidan was seated in the middle of the couch, one leg crossed over the other, resting against the back of the seat with one hand holding a datapad and the other scrolling through the display.  His eyes were fixed forward on endless lines of data and words, focused to the point where his face was stoic, a blank canvas waiting for some stimulus outside of Spectre reports to erase the lines on his brow and draw a smile to his lips.  Shepard cleared his throat.

And then Kaidan turned his head and looked at him, a bright new shine to his eyes and a smile breaking the surface of that dedicated focus.  Shepard returned it with an amused smirk.

“So, settling in for the long haul, huh,” he said.  “You laying claim to my cabin, Kaidan?”

Kaidan set the datapad onto the center table.  “You did leave the door unlocked.”

“And you finally took the invitation.”

Kaidan’s smile began to fade, but it lingered at the corners of his lips, just as heartfelt, just as bright with meaning.  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to straighten his posture.  “Hey, sit for a minute,” he said, tapping the edge of the cushion with one hand.

Shepard took a seat on the couch, wedging a thumb into the collar of his uniform and stretching it as though he needed the room to breathe, and Kaidan shifted at his side, watching as Shepard’s head tipped back and eyes closed to the overhead lights.  They had ended up here again, side by side, both so tired and yet silently searching for words to say to each other, any comfort or hope or strength that could be drawn from the cabin’s steadily-circulating air.

“How are you doing?” Kaidan finally asked, and Shepard opened his eyes and angled his neck the other way.

His face was strained, as though he were attempting to stretch out a crick in his neck, and the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth eased only on a long sigh.  He turned his head to properly face Kaidan and said, “Had my debrief with Hackett, told Joker to set course for Sanctuary on Horizon… everything’s all set for the next mission.”

There was a tiny quirk at the corner of Kaidan’s mouth, too subtle to be claimed a smile and too weak to be more than a silent gesture of support, but when Shepard saw it, his shoulders relaxed and his chest felt tight, an awkward combination that ruined any sense of composure he may have had left.

“Nowhere to go but forward, I guess,” Kaidan said.

“Yeah.”  Shepard slumped against the back of the couch.  “Sometimes it feels like we’re going in circles, though.”

Kaidan leaned back, settling into place at Shepard’s side so their uniforms brushed at the shoulders and their hands found each other on top of the cushion between them.  “I get that,” he said, glancing through the corner of his eye at Shepard.  “Going back to the same places in a galaxy so huge just makes it all seem so… small.  It’s a shame, really.”

Shepard let out a sound that he could not quite describe; it was somewhere between a mutter of disapproval and a murmur of agreement.  If Kaidan was attempting to get him to avoid thinking about the mission that waited just outside the cabin door, it was failing; but, for what it was worth, he appreciated it nonetheless.

“Doesn’t matter right now, Kaidan.”  Shepard turned his head, holding his words until Kaidan did the same.  “You’re here with me, and it means everything.”

That smile, so genuine and hopeful, returned to Kaidan’s face, and Shepard chuckled under his breath.  Only Kaidan could have ever made him slow down – or even stop completely – and see the galaxy outside of the next mission.  The black space between the stars was not so suffocating when Kaidan was there, sitting beside him, sharing a smile and a heartbeat that resonated between their fingertips in shared time.

This moment – this feeling – was perfect, and he was not going to think through it.  He was going to ensure that it happened like it always should have.

Battle-roughened hands, at one time steady only when curled around the handle of a gun, slid over Kaidan’s shoulders, bracing themselves against the padding of his uniform, holding him in place as Shepard pressed forward and met his lips, insistent and yet still longing, craving all that he could give.  And Kaidan pressed back, lips meshing with Shepard’s on a few languid strokes and hands gliding up his chest, fingers spreading over the clasps and any exposed fabric they could reach.

Kaidan pressed further, and Shepard leaned back, drawing Kaidan to his knees on the couch as their hands explored and their lips met over and over again.  What little space remained between them was filled with warm breaths and heated skin, muffled moans and terse gasps, wandering hands and possessive kisses.  Shepard shifted his hips up to meet Kaidan’s, fabric pulling against fabric, and he cupped Kaidan’s face in his hands and kissed him, hard and hot and with a promise of so much more.

Kaidan pulled back with a shudder, one hand cascading down Shepard’s chest to his trousers, where the bulge was already straining against the material, and he cocked an eyebrow.

“Already, Shepard?” he teased.

“You tend to have that effect,” Shepard said, pushing Kaidan back so he was seated on the center table, and then he rose to his feet.  He leaned over to kiss Kaidan, lips meeting on imperfect strokes while his hand ventured down to cup the growing erection in Kaidan’s trousers.  “Looks like I’m not the only one,” he added, returning that quirk of a brow.

They were quick at drawing their belts open and stroking each other over the fabric of their boxer-briefs, releasing soft moans into the shells of one another’s ears and sharing warm kisses at sporadic moments.  Shepard’s hands teased their way under Kaidan’s skivvy shirt, and Kaidan shuddered under the touch, rough palms grazing over his abs and pecs and fingertips working over his nipples.

“S-Shit, Shepard…”

Kaidan traced his fingertips along the underside of Shepard’s shaft, and Shepard trembled, his knees shaking and his stomach tensing, until he forced that hand away by drawing Kaidan’s shirt and uniform padding up and over his head, leaving Kaidan a little stunned, as though he had not been expecting this encounter to go the way it was now threatening to.

But Shepard wanted it to go that way – all the way.

“Hey, give me one sec,” he said, pausing to cup Kaidan’s jaw and kiss him once or twice.  “I may have picked up more than that lager the last time we stopped at the Citadel.  And don’t worry, this one wasn’t Liara’s idea… it was all on me.”

Kaidan sat still, only turning his head to watch Shepard walk past him toward one of the nightstands near his bed, and his eyes widened when he caught sight of the bottle of lube that Shepard carried back with him and immediately handed off.  Kaidan glanced down at the bottle that had been so unceremoniously placed into his hand – or, rather, dropped into his hand – and looked up.  No romantic gesture, no shy proposal, no flirtatious suggestion?

“That’s it?”

“The hell do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” Shepard quipped, gesturing toward the sizable bottle in Kaidan’s hand.  “How many times are you planning on fucking me?”

“Fucking you?”

“Did I stutter?” Shepard asked, a coy smile tracing over his lips.

“No, ‘that’s it,’ as in, well… I guess you’re _not_ really the romantic type, are you?”

Shepard hesitated.  “Yeah, I guess not,” he eventually agreed.

Kaidan had to smile.  “How about—”

“If you say ‘make love,’ I will throw you out right now.”

“Really?”

“After all the time I wasted in getting here?  Not a chance in hell.”

Kaidan rose to his feet and set the bottle aside on the bed, then turned his attention back to Shepard – specifically getting that uniform off him.  His hands worked every clasp they could reach, unfastening straps that held the padding in place and teasing off the undershirt.  Each of them shrugged off his own boots and trousers until there was a haphazard pile of clothes on the floor beside the two of them, starchy regulation uniforms that were so constricting even under normal circumstances – whatever _normal_ was in the chaos of this galaxy.

And then Kaidan gripped Shepard by the biceps and kissed him, stuttering out a groan between breaths when their bare chests came into contact, hot skin brushing over hot skin, erections grinding against the fabric of their boxer-briefs in the subtlest complementary shifts of the hips.  He led Shepard toward the bed, guiding him backward on a few anxious steps, and stopped when the backs of Shepard’s knees hit the edge of it.

“So, I gotta’ ask,” he began once he had pulled away from Shepard.  “After everything, did you just expect me to go for it?”

“No,” Shepard admitted, turning his head away slightly.  “But I hoped you would.”

Kaidan smiled.  No sardonic comment, no teasing laugh, no amused reply – just a smile that spoke volumes.

With a gentle prod at each arm, Shepard sat on the edge of the bed, his hands falling to the sheet at his sides and gripping it between quivering fingers when Kaidan stopped and stood directly before him.  His hands teased at the waistband of his boxer-briefs, and Shepard swallowed hard, eyes fixed forward on the tantalizingly slow slide of the fabric down the slant of Kaidan’s hips and the muscles of his legs.  To his chagrin, though, Kaidan did not let him enjoy the view.  Instead, Kaidan promptly fell to his knees and wedged his thumbs into the waistband of Shepard’s boxer-briefs.

He shifted to assist with the removal, his hard length sliding out from beneath the confining material and into the narrow space between them, and when he was fully exposed before Kaidan, he let out a soft moan, his hands clenching the sheets a little tighter and his eyes glazing over with desire.

One of Kaidan’s hands slid to his thigh, fingers sprawling out over heated skin and pressing lightly into the subtle dips and over the crests of muscle.  Another hand wrapped loosely around the base of his erection, fingertips trailing short patterns over one side, palm brushing against the other, and thumb gliding over the thick vein on the underside, and every slow stroke sent sparks up his spine, tiny aftershocks of the initial touches that had him nearly shivering with anticipation and need.

Kaidan looked up at him, his hand grazing a little further over his thigh and his lips parting on a fractured breath, eyes longing for that gaze to be returned – and Shepard looked down at him, biting back the moan that had wedged itself in his throat at the mere sight of Kaidan there between his spread knees.  And when Kaidan took the tip into his mouth, wet lips gliding over the hard flesh and tongue sliding underneath the head, Shepard finally let it out.

“Fuck, Kaidan—”

Words bled into a long moan of pleasure as Kaidan moved forward, impossibly soft lips slicking down a few inches and tongue sliding along the underside, curling over the edges of the head and dipping toward the slit on the backstroke.  His every motion was measured, controlled, wet heat on already-hot flesh, and Shepard tipped his head back and closed his eyes, one hand scrambling for purchase until it found Kaidan’s shoulder and gripped it, fingers twitching and palm beginning to sweat under the heat shared between them.

And when Kaidan had taken all he had to give, Shepard nearly cried out, a deep groan slipping between clenched teeth and reverberating against his chest, his lungs hot with rapid breaths, his abs tense with the coil tightening low in his gut.  Kaidan pulled back, another long, leisurely stroke of the tongue that ended with a pointed tip tracing small circles over the bundle of nerves on the underside of the head, and Shepard opened his eyes and tilted his gaze down to watch.

“Kaidan, you’re so… damn—”

His mouth had opened to a gape, every sharp exhale unabashedly thickened by moans of sheer desire.  One hand gripped the sheet at his side while the other glided across the junction of Kaidan’s shoulder and neck and came to rest at the base of his skull, fingers skimming into his hair and following his every movement, back and forth, over and over, until he was unconsciously shifting his hips forward to meet every one of Kaidan’s perfect motions.

But Kaidan’s hand pressed further into his thigh as though holding him down, and he quickened his pace, taking every slickened inch on each stroke forward and back.  Shepard bit his lip, his breathing erratic and his chest tight, and he moaned through slightly parted lips as he watched the entire length slide in and out of Kaidan’s mouth – and the sight alone was so hot, so incredible and yet unbearable for the same reason.  Those lips sliding so effortlessly over his flesh, that tongue curving along the vein and matching the rapid pulse, every motion quick and heated and maddeningly perfect.  The tension building in his stomach was too much, and he was treading too close to the edge.

“K-Kaidan, stop,” he finally stammered out.  His fingers were trembling in the thick of Kaidan’s hair, and his thigh was quivering beneath the palm of Kaidan’s hand.

Kaidan pulled back, watching as the short trail of saliva between his bottom lip and Shepard’s erection soon collapsed in the space between them. His eyes flicked up to meet Shepard’s, a hint of uncertainty settling low in his gut as he waited, wondering if Shepard had changed his mind or realized some mistake he would never tell.  But there was none of that desperate apprehension in Shepard’s eyes, only trust and something like appreciation.  Shepard’s hand moved from the back of Kaidan’s head to cup his face, fingers stroking his cheek in gentle patterns, so uncharacteristic of the man whose own face was far too accustomed to a gritted jaw on the battlefield and a stern glare in the boardroom.

His other hand soon joined the first, cradling Kaidan’s jaw, light touches somehow so insistent, and Kaidan rose up from his knees, trailing his hands up Shepard’s abs and pecs to his shoulders as he pressed forward and kissed him.  His hands traced over Shepard’s neck to his face, holding on with the same fervent touch, passionate and possessive, fingertips pressing into the hinge of Shepard’s jaw and thumbs brushing back and forth against the stubble on his cheeks, relishing in the tiny prickling sensations against his skin.

Shepard kissed him with more urgency, lips parting wider on each stroke and meshing imperfectly with Kaidan’s on alternating movements.  He let himself collapse to the sheets, pulling Kaidan along with him, lips locked on his, hands holding on with that intimate touch, thighs spreading further apart as Kaidan mounted the bed between them.  Kaidan rolled his hips against him, their erections meeting in the narrow space that remained between their bodies, hard flesh slick with saliva and sweat.  Shepard moaned into his mouth, hips bucking upward to meet every languid stroke, and Kaidan grinned into the kiss and finally pulled back.

“Shepard.”

Nothing more, nothing less.  And Shepard looked up at him through a sheen of desire, blue eyes unfathomably deep with both want and need: want for their bodies to fit together as they had always meant to, and need for everything Kaidan had to offer – his devotion, his trust, his strength, and his love.

But Kaidan lifted himself further up, falling still and silent above Shepard, breaking his hesitation only to trace his hands down his neck to his pecs and waist, gazing reverently down at him, at every scar, every freckle, every flaw that no one else would ever know lay buried beneath all that armor plating.  Here, sprawled out over the sheets beneath him, was just a man – not a diplomat, not a soldier, not a legend – and Kaidan loved him.

“Come on, Kaidan,” Shepard finally said, voice low and rough, and Kaidan had to smile, even as he could see Shepard’s lip quivering on his name.

Kaidan watched one of Shepard’s hands spread out over the sheet, blindly searching for the tube that had been set aside, and Kaidan captured that hand in his own and leaned over to trail his tongue up the side of Shepard’s neck, earning a long, stuttering groan against the shell of his ear and a twitch from the erection throbbing alongside his own.  One hand continued to caress Shepard’s cheek while the other slowly slipped from Shepard’s grasp, leaving the commander’s fingers clenching the sheet for purchase as their lengths slid along one another with short thrusts of Kaidan’s hips.

And when Kaidan again pulled back, Shepard opened his eyes, bright blue stifled by a veneer of lust, and let out a fractured moan at catching sight of the bottle in Kaidan’s hand.  Kaidan tore the shrinkwrap from the tube and uncapped it, and Shepard held his breath, both hands clutching the sheet in tense anticipation.

But then Kaidan faltered, dark eyes softening and lips curling down with concern.

“You okay?” he asked.

Only Kaidan would stop in the middle of this – the pleasure, desire, longing and want and need – and ask if he was _okay_.  Shepard wanted so badly to laugh, but he stilled and released the breath he had been holding hostage when he realized what the word meant.  Kaidan was giving him the chance to back out, to stop where they were, to go back to where they had been.

But this, all of this, was pure and perfect and right – and Shepard had already made his decision.

“Yeah.”  A single breath of a word, an affirmation of what they were and where they were going and what it meant.

And then his breath hitched when he saw that faint smile trace over Kaidan’s lips, a shy admission and a reverent gaze all rolled into one beautiful gesture.  Shepard pushed himself up on his forearms and kissed him, closing his eyes to that smile – but he could still see it, the little quirk at the corners of Kaidan’s lips that said everything through silence.

He parted from Kaidan on a staggered breath, hooking an arm around Kaidan’s neck to steady himself, pressing their foreheads together at an odd angle so he could look down and watch Kaidan slather two fingers with lube.  Kaidan angled his head to kiss him, light and brief, and then retreated as one finger circled around and teased Shepard’s entrance, causing him to gasp and groan and shudder.

When the slickened finger pressed inside, Shepard cried out between clenched teeth, his jaw gritting and his hand curling into a fist at the nape of Kaidan’s neck, his thighs quivering atop Kaidan’s and his chest heaving on stuttering breaths.  He was so tense, so nervous despite his strength, and Kaidan pulled his head back to look him in the eye.

“God, Shepard,” he started, nearly cringing at the resistance, “are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Shepard nodded, but then tilted his head down to avoid the gaze.  “Y-Yeah,” he stammered, unable to stop his thighs from shivering.  “I just— give me a sec.”

“Whatever you need.”

Shepard took a deep breath, but it did nothing.  He shifted as best he could, but the angle was too awkward.  His hand relaxed and sprawled out over the nape of Kaidan’s neck, but the grounding hold was not enough.  The embedded lines at the corners of his eyes and upon his brow spread further, and he released a frustrated murmur on a surrendered breath.

“Fuck…”

Kaidan set the tube aside and gently stroked the inside of Shepard’s thigh.  “Shepard, relax.”

Shepard grunted.  “Easier said than done.”

Kaidan’s gaze fell away, and he swallowed hard.  “I can stop if—”

“Don’t,” Shepard cut in, his hand gripping the nape of Kaidan’s neck as though emphasizing his point.

Kaidan looked back at him. “Then you need to relax.”

“I’m not made of glass, Kaidan,” he scoffed.

“Yeah, more like steel,” Kaidan said, trailing a hand over Shepard’s thigh and to his abs.  “But you still need to relax.”

Shepard winced.  “Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Completely.”

“Then look at me.”

The shine in Kaidan’s eyes said everything his lips could not.  It was bright with the faint glow from the aquarium.  It was soft with trust and appreciation, yet hard with desire and need.  It reflected the galaxy back at him in a single glance, a single moment of everything laid bare between them, and Shepard let himself fall into it, pushing himself forward to kiss Kaidan with all that he had.

His breathing hitched when Kaidan pressed his finger deeper inside until it was buried to the second knuckle, and when another finger pressed against his entrance and finally eased in beside the first, Shepard parted from Kaidan’s lips on a gasp and a fractured groan.  The pull of reluctant muscles was painful at first, but he swallowed his broken breaths and kissed Kaidan until it faded into mere discomfort.

“Shepard,” Kaidan said, lips moving against his on the drawling syllables.

He kissed him once more, a peck of the lips that was unspoken approval, and then he retreated slightly, tilting his head down to watch Kaidan remove his fingers and grab the bottle of lube.  He swallowed the groan that had wedged itself in his throat when he saw Kaidan slather his palm with more lube and work it over his erection, slick fingers sliding up and down the entire shaft on every motion.  Kaidan set the bottle aside, and Shepard let himself fall back to the sheet.

He lay there, steadying his breaths and his senses, watching as Kaidan aligned himself and finally looked up at him.

“Do it, Kaidan.”

And Kaidan pressed forward into the ring of muscle until he was buried halfway inside.  He was panting, his eyes glazed over with pleasure, but Shepard shuddered and gasped at the intrusion, the intense heat and odd friction.  Kaidan stopped where he was, all desire drained from his eyes and replaced with concern.

“Shit, you’re so tight,” he said, shivering through his motion to lean over Shepard.  “Are you…?”

“Fine,” Shepard said, but his jaw was gritted and his stomach was tense.

His hands clenched the sheets, and his chest heaved on breaths that were too hot and too frantic.  He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, his body trembling beyond his control, his brow already dampening with a fine sheen of sweat.  Shepard lay still until he had adjusted to the angle and size, but his breaths were still erratic and his pulse was still unsteady.

When a hand, rough and yet earnest, cupped his cheek, Shepard turned his head back and opened his eyes to find Kaidan returning the gaze, all sincerity and honesty and happiness – that they were here, that they were doing this, that they were alive and in love.

Kaidan’s hand fisted in the sheet near Shepard’s shoulder, and Shepard let his knee slide into the crook of Kaidan’s elbow, turning partway onto his side and holding himself up on one forearm, shuddering under the change in angle and the exquisite friction.  Kaidan watched, a soft moan slipping from between stubble-burned lips as his eyes trailed over Shepard’s body: the angle of his hips, the slant of his torso, every contour and every ripple of muscle in his chest and shoulders and arms.  And when Kaidan took his length in hand, Shepard cried out, one hand clenching the sheet at his side and the other gripping Kaidan’s shoulder for support.  His sharp groan faded into a string of breathless whimpers when Kaidan leaned forward and kissed him, taking on every sound and drowning them all between their meshed lips.

He rocked his hips, maddeningly slow and gentle, while his fingers curled around Shepard’s erection with more conviction, sliding up and down the entire shaft on long, fast strokes.  Shepard began panting, chest heaving and lungs hot.  He met every one of Kaidan’s thrusts with a subtle push back, taking every inch that Kaidan would give him, moaning when he was sheathed to the hilt and gasping when he slowly slid out until only the head remained buried inside.

Shepard was writhing under every motion – every press forward into him, every heated stroke against his flesh – and he no longer cared that he had lost whatever semblance of control he had left.  His mouth opened to a gape, unable to restrain the name that lingered on the tip of his tongue. 

“Kaidan—!”

And Kaidan was just as lost.  He thrust a little quicker, timing the motions of his hips with the strokes of his hand.  His thumb rapidly slid up and over the head, gathering up the tiny trail of pre-cum and drawing it along the underside and toward the slit.  He shuddered forward, sweat-slicked skin against strong muscles, and kissed him.

Every hot breath against his lips sent his nerves reeling.  Every brush of stubble against his chin and cheeks ignited a novel sensation low in his gut, a coil tightening and tensing until it was on the verge of breaking.  Every clench of reflexive muscle over his erection sent sparks up his spine, radiating against his cheeks and burning in the hollow of his throat.

He parted from those kiss-bruised lips and stuttered, “S-Shepard, I—”

But Shepard’s forearm slid from beneath him and his torso collapsed to the sheet, his strong hand tugging at Kaidan’s shoulder to drag him along into another kiss, deep and slow.  He spread his thighs a little wider, opened his mouth a little further, and finally parted from him only when his lungs were silently crying out for air.

He opened his eyes.  Between him and the stars visible through the overhead window was Kaidan, filling all the empty space between them and bringing light to the vast blackness of space.

“Kaidan…” he said, voice low, nearly a whisper, and eyes soft and pleading and rueful and—

“Shepard.”

The man’s heart was shining through the tiniest reflections in his eyes.  Kaidan bent down to kiss him once more, lips merging on tender motions while he continued to thrust his hips forward, bringing their bodies together over and over in that intimate closeness.

He trailed his lips over Shepard’s chin and jaw, peppering his neck with a string of gentle kisses while Shepard gasped and moaned into his ear.  Muscles flexed in strong yet trembling motions.  Sweat-dampened chests writhed against one another on every staggered breath.  Hands grabbed and held on for all that they could.  Hips rolled against each other, deep thrusts and incredible heat and intense friction.  And Shepard bit his lip on a failed attempt to suffocate the staccato of short moans that spilled from between his clenched teeth.

“F-Fuck, Kaidan, I’m going to—”

“Don’t, not yet,” Kaidan said, a warm breath against his neck, and Shepard cried out in protest, a long rumble in his throat reverberating against Kaidan’s lips.

He drew back, unhooking his arm from beneath Shepard’s knee and instead gripping his waist, fingertips grazing over the tiny line of sweat that had pooled in the slant of his hip.  His other hand quickened its pace, dexterous fingers sliding up the entire length of Shepard’s shaft and down again, thumb drawing the pre-cum that continued to leak from the tip and swirling it around the head on alternating motions.  And he held Shepard there and thrust into him for all he could manage – long, deep lunges into his body that had Shepard writhing beneath him. 

“ _Kaidan_ …!”

Shepard was falling fast.  His biceps flexed with his hands fisting in the sheets, and his head tilted to the side with equally long, deep moans boiling out from the bottom of his lungs.  His stomach tensed, his eyes clenched shut, his jaw gritted, his brow ran with sweat, and he shivered under every motion until he finally arched his back and came.

And Kaidan stroked him to completion, releasing a soft groan at the sight of Shepard spilling over his own stomach, viscous cum tracing long streaks over the defined muscles there as they continued tensing and flexing under the last waves of climax.  He let go of Shepard’s waist and gripped his hand, fingers curling around his as they quivered in the bunched sheets, holding on with a firm grasp and sharing the erratic pulse against his skin.  With a few final thrusts, he tipped his head down and cried out.

“Shepard—”

One of Shepard’s hands darted up to the nape of his neck and dragged him down, crashing their lips together on a few kisses, all messily strung together as Kaidan continued to press forward, in and out, over and over.  Then Shepard pulled him back by the scruff of his neck, only a few inches, but enough distance to give Kaidan a perfect view of those stark blue eyes returning the gaze, all desire and trust – and love.  They shared every warm breath that filled the space between them.  They shared every drop of sweat, every pull of muscle, every sharp sensation and overstimulated nerve.  Shepard looked up at him with his heart in his eyes, and Kaidan buried himself to the hilt, shuddered and groaned, and came.

They both stopped where they were, merely breathing against one another, overheated skin grazing over the dips and crests of rippled muscles and scar tissue.  And finally Shepard took Kaidan’s jaw in both hands, smiled – that small, contented smile that he never thought would find his lips – and kissed him.

Cleanup was quick and graceless.  The momentary shudder in Shepard’s heart at seeing Kaidan stand and leave was worth it when he saw the appreciative look in Kaidan’s eye as he returned from the washroom with a towel and began to wipe away the mess on Shepard’s stomach.  With the towel cast aside onto the other side of the bed, Kaidan settled in beside Shepard, drawing him into his arms, into a warm embrace that was everything it ever should have been. And it was right, it was perfect, it truly was everything and it was even more than that.

Kaidan gazed up at the window embedded in the ceiling, eyes following the swirling blueshift emissions as they traced around the outlines of the stars.  And, though his chest was weighed down by Shepard’s head and arm, he could finally let himself breathe as he watched those tiny lights rebel against the darkness of space.

“You going to miss the view from the Starboard Observation lounge?” Shepard suddenly asked.

Kaidan chuckled.  “This one’s better.”

Shepard smiled, open and earnest, his stubble brushing backward across Kaidan’s collarbone with the wide stretch of his lips.  He held tighter, arms wrapped around Kaidan’s chest and cheek pressed into the crook of his neck, never to let him go.  He was finally content where he was, in this moment and in Kaidan’s arms.

From there, it did not seem like the world was ending.  It did not seem like the galaxy was collapsing around him.  It did not seem like his shoulders were being crushed under the weight of it all.

From there, it seemed like peace was possible.  It seemed like the future glowed with promise.  It seemed like time would never end.

Held in that embrace, in the warmth of Kaidan’s arms, there was hope – despite the darkness of space, despite the cruelty of war, despite the painful memories and haunting nightmares – and maybe, one day, he could face those nightmares and finally dream.


	21. Nightmare

_This is a fucking nightmare._

From the reception hall lined with dead Reaper and Cerberus bodies to the vid screens displaying brutal experiments that turned refugees into husks, from the laboratories bursting at the seams with Reaper forces to the bloody machinery left abandoned after their assault, from the initial shock at seeing Miranda’s warning about the facility’s true nature to facing the brutes and banshees in the hall that led to the central tower, Sanctuary was a nightmare.

When the last brute fell and there was nowhere to go but the elevator at the central tower, Shepard hesitated at the closed lift door and hated the fact that he did.  The stench of Reaper blood and antiseptic permeated the laboratories and hallways.  The air was thick with death and destruction and horror.  And when he and his squad entered the lift and heard the door close behind them, the space was so confining, trapping him in his own senses until his adrenaline threatened to seize them all.

The door opened to a small, dark room, with only the green hue on the opposite door’s locking mechanism reaching out to him, beckoning him forward with a faint glow and the sudden sound of gunshots.  He told his crew to get ready and then opened the door.

Kai Leng was gone.  Miranda was slumped over at the back of the central communications console, supporting herself on two shaking hands that were sprawled out over the cold floor.  And opposite them was Miranda’s father, Henry Lawson, staring back at them all from over the barrel of a gun, one arm slung around his other daughter’s neck in a chokehold.

All those refugees, all those innocent lives, all that bloodshed – all because of the man standing in front of him.  All because that man thought he had created hope, all because that man said he had taken on the burden of doing what it took to survive when no one else would, all because that man had believed his cruel experiments would save countless lives.  All because the man standing in front of him had believed himself the savior of humanity in a galaxy spiraling out of control.

_You sick bastard.  You’re just as deluded as the Illusive Man._

That man kept talking.  That man kept his arm locked around his daughter’s neck in a chokehold.  That man used her as a shield and yet claimed he knew how to save humanity.  Shepard’s jaw clenched, his eyes stared forward, and his hand tightened on the handle of his pistol, rage burning in the pit of his stomach on the unspoken desire to just silence him now – just get it over with.

Maybe he could shoot Oriana in the leg to distract Henry.  Maybe he could toss aside all those obstructive principles of his, just once, and kill her himself to rob Henry of his advantage.

Ruthless calculus.  A numbers game in which the odds stacked against him until they were insurmountable.  Every horrid sight and every unjustified death chipped away at that nagging sense of what was _right_ and left him with only necessity.

This was his chance… his only chance.  A dozen scenarios rattled around in his head until he was lost, drifting between them all in the brief seconds he granted himself, and finally his vision focused and his blood pumped with rhythmic certainty.  His finger slowly curled around the trigger, twitching on a few residual nerve impulses that threatened to finally clamp down and end it—

“Shepard.”

His eyes flicked to the side, catching only a glimpse of Kaidan’s concerned gaze, and then immediately found their way back to that man, gun still leveled at him, stark glare still peering back at him.  And Oriana shifted in that chokehold, a fruitless attempt that soon conceded to a few pleading words.

“Shepard, please…”

_Enough of this._

Shepard tilted his head slightly, staring down Henry from beneath the furrow of his brow.  “You try to leave with her, you die,” he said.  “Let her go, and maybe you walk.”

“I’ve done nothing to you,” Henry spat, nearly scoffing at the tone of Shepard’s voice.

Shepard took a few steps to his left, watching as Henry’s gun followed him.  “This isn’t about you and me,” he said, voice stern and commanding before the man whose words meant nothing – not to him, not to Miranda, not to any of them, the few living souls that remained in this forsaken facility.  “Let her go, and walk away.  I won’t say it again.”

Henry hesitated.  “All right, take her,” he finally said, and he shoved Oriana aside, who let out a pained grunt when she fell to the floor.  “But I want out alive.  Deal?”

Shepard’s finger curled around the trigger. 

_No._

Suddenly Henry was forced backward through the pane of glass, his scream dissipating into the air as he fell from the top of the tower to the facilities below.  Shepard glanced at Miranda, whose blue biotic glow wafted about her hands and lingered in the color of her eyes.

“No deal,” she muttered, and then she wandered over to help her sister.

With that man dead and gone, the remainder of Shepard’s time on the ground blended together, blurring around the edges on a residual pulse of adrenaline that refused to be quelled by what should have been a cathartic execution.  He instructed Kaidan to pull whatever intel he could from the computer at the tower’s central communications console, but there was no research data left, only some basic facility information like shuttle arrivals and departures.

And then Miranda chimed in with her own plan: she had planted a tracer on Kai Leng during their brief encounter, and she handed the module off to Shepard on the hope of finding the Illusive Man.  But the tracer was heavy in his hand, weighed down by urgency and revenge and so many other burdens that had already pressed upon his shoulders for far too long.

Miranda left with Oriana, and Shepard had one task left, the one duty to the galaxy that he could manage to accomplish there on Horizon.  With the communication scrambler disabled, the entire galaxy would know what Sanctuary was.

Shepard was the last to board the shuttle, and he replayed Miranda’s computerized words over and over in his head, the final statement from Sanctuary that the galaxy would ever hear.

_“Listen to me.  This is not a refugee camp.  This is a Cerberus facility run by my father, Henry Lawson—”_

Shepard sat in one of the jump seats, still and silent, hands clutching the tracer, eyes fixed forward on the bulkhead that separated the hangar from the bridge.  His face was stoic, unmoving, just as it had been after Thessia, after he had faced death itself and accepted his defeat, but now his silence was rooted in frustration at the atrocities he had witnessed.  His expression had long since been hardened by every brutal sight that lurked in the dark corners of the galaxy, but facing every cruel reality on Horizon – every death committed in the name of salvation – had his stomach twisting in sheer horror.

The lost souls that lingered in his nightmares as oily shadows and whispered voices had all faced him there on Horizon in nauseatingly stark reality.

Horizon had already been a source of guilt and pain and regret.  Now it was also a source of frustration and malice and anger: at Cerberus for its degeneracy, at the Illusive Man for his hypocrisy, at himself for his inadequacy.

_That place is still a nightmare._

Kaidan watched the subtle, uncontrollable contortions on Shepard’s face until he could no longer stand the sight.

“Shepard,” he started, tone firm and direct, but he stopped there.  Shepard refused to look up.  Shepard refused to acknowledge the name.  Shepard refused to release his hands from their shared vise grip.  Kaidan cleared his throat and tried again: “Shepard, you okay?”

It was a simple question, perhaps far too simple for the amalgam of emotions swirling about in his head, but Shepard finally let his hands fall apart, one clutching the tracer and the other grasping the edge of the jump seat.  His grip was strong, mechanical, the adrenaline that refused to drain from his veins still driving his every muscle movement into a hold focused solely on maintaining what strength it had left.

“Fine.”

His gaze fell to the deck.  Kaidan took a few steps forward, glancing only once at James, who stood awkwardly at the other corner with one hand clutching the overhead bar for support and his eyes trailing over the bay door and to the bridge, desperate to avoid any contact.

“Shepard,” he said, letting his hand fall from the overhead bar and to the shoulder plate of Shepard’s armor.  “It was rough down there, I know, but it’s done.”

Shepard shook his head, but he stayed silent.  _I think I can actually taste the irony in hearing you, of all people, say that, Kaidan._

Kaidan swallowed hard.  He let his hand slip from Shepard’s shoulder plate and then took the next jump seat.  He turned his head to look at Shepard, but all that met his eyes was Shepard’s stoic profile, gaze still fixed on the floor, embedded lines stretching at the corner of his mouth with a deepening frown.  It was abundantly clear what troublingly persistent thought was running rampant through Shepard’s mind, so Kaidan spoke.

“They’re alive because of you, you know,” he said.  “Miranda got out alive, and her sister, too.”

Shepard released a sound that was caught between a mirthless laugh and a frustrated murmur.  “Yeah, so they can watch the galaxy burn like the rest of us,” he replied, and Kaidan grimaced when he heard it.

“Shepard.”  Firm, curt, scornful – a tone that Shepard had not heard from Kaidan in a long time.

Shepard never looked away from the deck as he slumped forward, armored forearms pressing against his knees and hands again gripping the tracer, the sole indication of what path he should now take – but he was lost in the events past, the cruel experiments and the blood splatters and the silent death cries still fresh in his mind.

“I could’ve done more,” he muttered, his brow furrowing, his lip curling down at each corner into a scowl.  “I should’ve gotten there sooner.  I should’ve known that there’d be something like this out there.  This fucking nightmare never ends—”

“Shepard, stop for a second,” Kaidan cut in.

He put a hand on Shepard’s forearm, and the commander nearly shuddered beneath his armor at the touch that seemingly pierced that thick plating, as though there were nothing barring them from one another, as though every barrier that Shepard put up meant nothing to the man whose steadfast concern now graced his skin in that phantom touch.

“Listen to yourself,” he added, every embedded line on his face softening only when Shepard turned his head to look back at him.

Shepard settled back against the jump seat, and his grip on the tracer grew a little weaker.  “I…”

“There was nothing more you could’ve done,” Kaidan said.  “Nobody knew what Sanctuary really was.”

“I should’ve just shot him myself and gotten it over with,” Shepard scoffed.  “I should’ve ended all this bullshit sooner.”

Kaidan hesitated for a brief moment, but it was ultimately futile.  “I know you’re angry, but—”

“You’re angry, too,” Shepard cut in, his eyes alight with a fire that Kaidan had not seen in what felt like ages.  “Don’t pretend that you’re not.”

“I’m not pretending,” Kaidan said.  His hand fell from Shepard’s forearm, and it suddenly felt colder beneath its gauntlet.  “Yeah, you’re right – I’m pissed, but what good does it do right now?  If you want to be angry, be angry at the Illusive Man.  He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“More than that.”  Shepard’s hand clenched over the tracer, and again he stared at shuttle floor.

Kaidan turned his head to find James looking back at him, but the lieutenant’s eyes quickly fell away as soon as they met the sharp sting of concern that laced Kaidan’s gaze.  James had avoided eye contact with both of them during the mission to Mars, when their reunion had been less than stellar; and now, despite some obvious change in their shared demeanor, watching the two of them attempt to reconcile their anger and frustration – at Cerberus, at Horizon, at one another, at themselves – was just as difficult.

The remainder of the shuttle ride was largely quiet, with only a few status updates from Steve and a couple snarky responses from James, but the tension from Horizon was still palpable in the air, every voiced frustration and every unspoken argument lingering like a haze over all of their heads.

In the shuttle bay, Shepard dressed down to his uniform as quickly as he could manage, leaving Kaidan behind at the armor locker as he headed for the lift.  Kaidan watched Shepard disappear behind the elevator door, and James watched Kaidan turn away and lean against the locker like his armor had suddenly become unbearably heavy.

Shepard was silent as he made his way through the CIC and around the corner to the war room.  No one interrupted him – not with that stern determination plastered upon his face, not with that dedicated focus fixing his eyes forward on a single goal… they all knew better. 

When he reached the small area at the other end of the war room, Shepard set the tracer onto the console and then opened the vid comm link.  And when the hologram of Hackett appeared in the middle of the chamber, Shepard leaned forward, hands curling over the edge of the console, and waited.

“I wasn’t in favor of your diversion to Sanctuary, Commander,” Hackett said, and Shepard felt his shoulders stiffen.  “Too many unknowns.  But I was wrong.  The Cerberus lab you raided hinted at something big, but we never expected this.  All those refugees, all that slaughter… just to study indoctrination.”

“Sanctuary did need to be shut down, sir,” Shepard replied.  “What they learned about the Reapers wasn’t worth all those lives.”

Hackett nodded once and said, “It’s useful intel, Commander, but you’re right.  The cost was too high.”  His holographic form lifted a hand to its chin and turned its head slightly, signaling the question that Shepard had been anticipating since he watched Miranda leave with her sister.  “Do we have a location on the Illusive Man?”

“Yes,” he answered, “we had a tracer on Kai Leng when he reported back.”

Hackett lowered his arm to his side.  “Good, that gives us a fighting chance to take Cerberus out of this war.”

“Agreed.  We need to end Cerberus and focus on the Reapers.”

“My thoughts exactly.  Hackett out.”

The transmission ended, and Shepard glanced at the tracer that rested in the middle of the console.  He had to do this, and he had to do it quickly.  Time was running short, just the same as it had always been.  He turned away from the console and headed for the war room, but he nearly stumbled at the last stair when he found Kaidan waiting at the other end of the map in the center of the room.  He had already dressed down to his uniform, an art perfected through repetition in the unfortunate haste of a life bound by war.

“How did it go?”

Shepard could only look at him for a brief moment before his gaze fell away to the floor, and Kaidan took a cautionary step forward.

“Fine,” he answered.  He did not look up to see the wince on Kaidan’s face.  He did not have to see it to know that it was there and that it was painful.  “All according to plan.”

“Good,” Kaidan said, but the tone of his voice gave him away.  He watched Shepard lift his gaze to the map in the center of the room, and he waited.

“EDI, patch me through to the bridge,” Shepard suddenly said, only his lips moving upon a statuesque face.

“Commander?” came Joker’s voice from somewhere overhead.  He sounded genuinely surprised, and Kaidan glanced at Shepard with the same curiosity.

Shepard turned his eyes toward the ceiling and said, “Joker, set course for the Horsehead Nebula.”

And it was returned with a simple, “Aye aye.”

“Shepard, slow down,” Kaidan said, taking a few more steps toward him.  “Take a minute to breathe.”

But Shepard’s eyes were fixed on the map in the center of the room, his next destination already planned, his next move already calculated.  “This has to end, Kaidan,” he said, glancing up at him only once, but there was a rueful flinch in that split-second look that made Kaidan shiver.  “I’ve already made my decision.”

Kaidan’s brow furrowed.  He led Shepard to the vid comm room, away from every stray glance, away from every ambient hum and flickering light, and watched as Shepard pulled his arm from the gentle hold and then leaned against the doorframe.

“Don’t do this, Shepard.”

Shepard cringed when he saw it: Kaidan’s eyes so pleading, whiskey brown dulled into a darker shade by pain.  He swallowed hard, too many thoughts swirling about in his head – _I’m sorry, Kaidan_ – _I have to do this_ – _I can’t stand it, any of it_ – and they all faded into a muddled mess until nothing coherent could have left his lips even if he wanted it to.

“Listen,” Kaidan said, lifting a hand to Shepard’s bicep, thumb stroking over the skin exposed beneath the bunched sleeve of his uniform.  “I can’t believe what I saw down there on Horizon, either.  After everything we did to bring help to the colonists, after the Collector attacks, after… after everything.”

His eyes softened, and Shepard held his breath.

“But it’s okay,” Kaidan continued, the tiniest upturn of his lip making Shepard shudder against the cold metal doorframe.  “Sanctuary was shut down, and now the whole galaxy knows what it really was.  You’ve done a great thing in a bad situation.  You did the best you could, and sometimes that’s all you can do.  You taught me that.”

Shepard shook his head.  “Kaidan—”

“You’re an amazing leader, Shepard,” he cut in.  “That you sometimes question yourself means you have some honor left.  And that in itself is pretty damn amazing, you know?  With everything happening out there, you’re still human.  You’re still here.”

“Yeah, but…”

His words trailed off into silence when the hand at his bicep slid over his side, and Kaidan took him into his arms, drawing him away from the doorframe and merely standing there, holding him like a lifeline.  With Kaidan’s head on his shoulder, Kaidan’s arms around his back, Kaidan’s weak smile against his cheek, Shepard stood still.

“Shepard, it’s okay,” he said, his voice a low whisper against the shell of Shepard’s ear.  “It’s over.  Horizon is shrinking into the distance out there.  We can finally leave it behind us.”

“But it’s not over,” he retorted, “not by a longshot.  Not while the Illusive Man is still breathing.”

But for all his harsh words, he brought his hands up to Kaidan’s shoulder blades and held him, fingertips quivering against the padding of his uniform and palms spreading over the curvature of the muscles buried beneath.  There was security in that embrace.  There was warmth in that hold.  There was trust in every gentle breath that brought their chests together and every malformed word that brushed quivering cheeks against one another.

“Shepard, I know this is all frustrating—”

“It’s so much more than that, Kaidan.”  His hands were shaking, and his chest began to heave on erratic breaths.  “About Horizon… I never want to hear about that fucking place ever again.  I’ve had enough.  I’m— I hate it.”

“You hate what?”

“All of it.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

“Shepard—”

“I’m tired.”  His hands fell to his sides, and Kaidan finally let go and took a step back.  Shepard had spoken the truth, but it had the distinct aftertaste of a lie.  “That’s all there is to it.”

Kaidan wore that defeatist smile that made Shepard’s chest ache.  “I understand,” he said.  “You’ve got a lot on your plate, but you need to slow down.  Don’t wear yourself out before the fight even starts.”

Shepard looked him in the eye when he said, “The fight never ended, Kaidan.”

He fought Cerberus grunts and Reaper forces when he was awake.  He fought the darkness and the voices when he was not.  He had never been able to walk away.  He had never been able to let go.

_I just have to keep going.  That’s all I can do._

And then Kaidan heaved a sigh.  “So let me help you.”

“Kaidan…”

“Don’t take this all on yourself,” he said, voice catching on a hitched breath.  “Not again.”

Shepard closed his eyes and leaned against the doorframe once more, tilting his head back until it hit the cold metal.

“I’m sorry.” He opened his eyes to meet Kaidan’s, and Kaidan’s features eased when he saw the genuine remorse in that gaze.  “I’m glad you’re here, but I think I just need to clear my head.”

That weak smile returned.  “Okay, Shepard.  Tell you what: I’m going to the Starboard Observation lounge.  Do what you need to do.  You know where to find me when you’re ready to talk.”

Shepard watched him go.  He felt the phantom touch of Kaidan’s hand upon his, the brush of warm skin in a gentle hold, lined with concern and trust and love even after this – even after everything.  But Shepard pushed himself away from the doorframe and paced the deck in short, fruitless lines between the vid comm console and the wall at the other end of the room.

Every fleeting reminder of the war that had been so easily quelled by hopeful words and soft kisses had returned in full force there on Horizon, the harsh reality that lurked in the dark regions of space.  Every image of death and destruction loomed in the background of every memory: of the horror on Kaidan’s face, of the pain in Kaidan’s eyes, of the reality he faced at that moment when Kaidan stood before him, unbelieving that Shepard had transcended his own death and the destruction of the _Normandy_ only to then turn his back on everything he had always lived for.

He would never forget the look on Kaidan’s face.  He would never forget the tone of Kaidan’s voice.  He would never forget the harsh reality that he faced that day and relived in his waking nightmares ever since, in every pulse of adrenaline, in every sprint over bloodstained ground and through a hail of gunfire.

_That was the moment that I—_

“God damn it.”

It was a mutter of frustration released on a terse sigh and shaken voice.  He wanted to stop thinking.  He needed to let the adrenaline do what it had always done.  He needed to drown out every thought and every voice, and, at that moment, he could not possibly care less whether it was right or wrong.  So he drew the display on his omni-tool and opened a voice-only comm link, and when the connection was established, he spoke immediately.

“James, you busy?”

“I’ve got some time,” came the mildly-surprised response.  “Why?”

“Get ready to dance.”


	22. Fight

Only the low ambient hum that had always permeated the shuttle bay greeted Shepard when the elevator door opened.  James was waiting at his workstation, and he looked up when he heard Steve’s voice, a rather puzzled salutation that Shepard then acknowledged with a nod in his direction.

Shepard wasted no time in proceeding past the procurement console, set in his destination, and James met him halfway at the center of the bay.  They both knew what they were there for.  They both knew what the plan was.

“You ready to go, old man?” James asked, cracking the knuckles on each fist.

“Yeah.”

“Been a while since we had a good chat,” James added as he raised his fists and took his sparring stance.  “Got something to get out of your system?  You pissed off about all the crazy stuff down there on Horizon?”

Shepard mirrored the stance and muttered, “Doesn’t matter _why_ I’m here.”

“Guess not.  Let’s go, then.”

“Your move.”

The first hit sent a pulse of adrenaline rushing through his veins – his vision focused, his breathing stabilized, and his heart throbbed with certainty – and he took a step back after James’ fist collided with his arm, which he quickly shook off in a block.  Shepard took another sidestep, eyes tracing over James’ smirk as he followed with a step forward and a jab.  He ducked to one side, letting the punch slide ineffectually through the air, and returned it with a swing into James’ ribs, causing him to stumble to the side for a brief moment of pause before he repaid the swing in earnest with another jab to Shepard’s arm.

And then there was nothing to think about, nothing to feel… only the rush that would come with the next hit.  He tilted his head back to avoid an uppercut, feinted in one direction, and then took another jab at James’ side, which he avoided in a quick dodge to the other side.

In the hesitation that followed, James grinned at him, and Shepard narrowed his eyes.

“There was a reason why I wanted to know what you did when they asked you to join the N7 program,” James said, his fists wavering in the air and threatening to form proper punches.  “You’re always making the tough calls, doing the shit that nobody else can.”

“I know.”  Shepard never lowered his guard, never let his fists fall even an inch, and he felt his hands clenching tighter.  “What’s your point?”

“Point is, you’re doing the right thing,” James said, taking another step forward and another side swing at Shepard’s arm, which was quickly blocked.  “I believe it.”

Shepard jabbed at James’ extended arm, knocking it away with one swift motion.  “How’s that?”

James took a step back but kept his guard up, and Shepard merely watched him for a moment.  “Leaving Earth was the right call,” he said.  “There wasn’t anything we could’ve done on the ground.”

Shepard kept his eyes locked forward as the two of them began to circle around, still gauging movements, still anticipating every attack.  “You say that like you think it was an easy decision for me,” he muttered, voice low and gritty.

“Didn’t say it was easy,” James replied.  He suddenly stopped in his tracks and landed a punch on Shepard’s shoulder, and the pained hiss that slipped between the commander’s clenched teeth was his reward for the interruption.  “Neither was Menae or Rannoch or Thessia,” he added, pausing to dodge a swing aimed at his jaw.  “You’ve had a lot of tough calls.”

“Out with it already,” Shepard spat.

But, to his surprise, James looked at him with respect from behind his clenched fists.  “You told me that I made the right decision on Fehl Prime,” he said, pausing as Shepard stopped circling around and stood before him, silent and still, hands fisted but suspended halfway in the air like some botched plan.  “Lost most of my squad, got a promotion, and for what?  Intel that ended up being useless.”

He could see the furrow of Shepard’s brow, the dark veneer over his eyes – the adrenaline that pulsed in his veins in protest of the delay – and he continued, “But I get it now.  If I’d saved them all, things still would’ve gone to hell.  Doesn’t mean I don’t still think about it.  Doesn’t mean I don’t still wonder if I did the right thing.  And I think about what you said, too.  But you do more than talk.  You get shit done.  Promised myself I’d learn from all the sacrifice and do better in the N7 program.”

Shepard finally took another step toward him, but he did not swing.  “So make good on that promise and move forward.”

“Now you’re getting it, Loco.”

“Don’t,” Shepard murmured.  “Don’t even try to turn this around on me.”

“Just saying… you’re doing all you can.  That’s all anybody can expect from you.  And it’s still more than anyone else has done.”

_And what good has come out of it?  How many people have we lost because I haven’t said the right thing, because I haven’t gotten shit done?  I thought I was right, but what about them?  What about everyone waiting for us on Earth?  What about Kaidan—_

The next hit was faster, stronger, and it caught James off guard when it collided with his jaw.  Shepard took half a step forward, and James tilted his head and brushed the back of his hand over his jaw, mildly impressed at the sudden zeal.

“Nice one,” he said, raising his guard.

But Shepard did not stop.  His punches were brutal, his movements were swift and focused, and his mind slipped further under the influence of his erratic heartbeat.

“Whoa, Loco.  You’re serious about this.  Guess I’ll stop holding back for the pep talk.”

“Good.”  Shepard’s voice seethed with anger and frustration.  “Give it your all.”

“You asked for it.”

In every rapid punch, in every focused stroke, Shepard was shooting Henry Lawson.  He was saving all those lives from the horrors of Sanctuary.  He was making the decision that had never been his to make.  He was doing the right thing.

With a quick feint to one side and then a jab to the face, he bloodied James’ nose – a victory, a sight for which the sole reward was a rush of adrenaline.

“Hey, slow down, Commander!” Steve called from the other end of the shuttle bay, taking a few steps away from the procurement console.  He stopped where he was when he realized that Shepard had not acknowledged it; rather, Shepard’s eyes were fixed forward, focused on James alone, focused on his single goal.

_You all want me to slow down.  You want me to stop.  But they aren’t stopping… why should I?_

“Chill out, Esteban!” James called back, ducking to one side to avoid an incoming swing.  “It’s just getting interesting!”

_If I stop, I fail._

A swing at James’ temple sent him stumbling in the other direction, and he quickly picked up his fists and returned it with a punch to Shepard’s jaw.  Shepard took a step back, heard the crack in the hinge of his jaw when he moved it, and then took another step to the side, staring down James through a stern pair of blue eyes now drowned in ire.

_People die._

He landed a punch on James’ arm, which was parried with a side swing and soon followed by a short jab to the stomach.  Shepard shuddered with the sudden stab of pain in his gut, but it faded under a pulse of adrenaline, and he took another step forward and another shot at James’ ribs, but it was just as quickly parried and returned in earnest.

_Worlds fall._

Shepard ducked to one side, never lowering his fists, but his arms were growing heavy, his lungs were boiling from overexertion, and his muscles were driven only by his fight-or-flight instinct.  He had chosen to fight, and he could take the pain for as long as his adrenaline would last.  James dodged his next swing, Shepard’s focus began to waver, and he began panting as he circled around, struggling to keep his fists level.

_We lose._

Their space in the shuttle bay was tainted by the sounds of erratic exhales and tiny splatters of blood upon the deck.  Sweat beaded upon Shepard’s brow as he took another swing, landing an uppercut to James’ jaw that sent him back a few feet, only to then find him swinging back with renewed vigor.  Shepard was starting to struggle to block the fiery attacks, and he was slowly fading.  The rush was familiar, but fleeting: no substance, no meaning beyond the next hit.

_And I lose him._

That was the moment that he truly looked at James: jaw gritted, focused on nothing but the adrenaline in his veins and the pulse in his fists – uncompromising, fiercely determined to a fault.  In the sharp lines on his face and the fire burning in his eyes, Shepard saw his own reflection.

He was fighting himself.  He always had been.

He stopped, his fists fell slightly, and then he received an unchecked one-two to the gut and jaw.

James took a few staggered steps back, eyes widening and mouth opening on a tense exhale when Shepard doubled over, clutching his stomach with one hand while the other fell limp at his side.

“O-Oh, _mierda_.”

Shepard stood up straight and brushed the back of his hand across his jaw.  “It’s okay, we’re done here.”  He glanced at his hand, which, fortunately, showed no evidence of blood.  “Thanks for the workout.”

James watched as Shepard then turned partway on his heel.  “So… that means I won, right?”

Shepard stopped mid-step.

“Yeah.”  He looked over his shoulder at James, who stood there with his arms folded.  “You did.”

He made his way to the lift at the other end of the shuttle bay, granting Steve an apologetic glance as he walked by, which was returned with a look of mixed concern and frustration.  He turned his head the other way and kept walking, leaving the fight behind there in the shuttle bay as the lift door closed before him.

He settled against the elevator wall, feeling the last residual thrums of adrenaline fade from his veins, tipping his head back against the cold metal as though it would help hold him upright.  He felt like he was falling into some abyss – or perhaps he had already fallen into it – but he had somewhere to go, he had somewhere he truly needed to be, and he stepped forward to the control console to select the Crew Deck module.

When the door opened and he found the memorial wall immediately greeting his tired eyes, he bit back a mutter of frustration.  He had thought he was fighting for them, for all the fallen in the galaxy – on Horizon and Thessia and everywhere else – but all he had accomplished was feeling the sting of the self-destructive fire that burned in his veins.  He turned away and headed down the short hall that led to the Starboard Observation lounge, where the door opened to reveal Kaidan standing before that large window, as he had so often done, familiar in the best possible way.

Shepard touched a hand to his stomach as he walked in, subtly gauging the remaining pain, and Kaidan’s eyes widened and lips pressed into a hard line as Shepard approached.  The faint outline of a bruise was buried under the dark stubble on his jaw, and a couple scratches littered his cheeks, already scabbed over in rough, jagged lines.

“What the hell happened?”

Shepard stopped beside Kaidan and stood up straight, letting his arm fall to his side.  “Took a detour to the shuttle bay and had a chat with James,” he answered, eyes fixed only on him.

Kaidan turned his head slightly, the pinched curl of his lip caught somewhere between worry and irritation.  He recalled that James had mentioned having a ‘chat’ with Shepard at some point; unfortunately, it was now painfully obvious what that entailed, evidenced by the wince on Shepard’s face that he struggled to bury beneath a faint smile.

“Did it help?” he finally asked.

Shepard’s subtle grin grew a little wider.  “Not in the way I thought it would,” he replied.

Kaidan heaved a sigh and turned his head the other way.  “Well, I guess I should be grateful that it wasn’t the alternative.”

“What’s that?”

“Getting so drunk that you can’t remember what happened.”

“I don’t know, Kaidan,” he said, a mirthless laugh underscoring his words, just as painful for Kaidan to hear as it was for Shepard to feel burning in the hollow of his throat.  “Might not be so bad if it leads to me waking up in your arms again.”

Kaidan finally looked back at him.  “Shepard…”

“Sorry.  I thought— hoped it would help get my mind off things.”

“You’re falling into your old routines again.”

“I know I am.”

Shepard had cracked under pressure: the weight of his responsibility, the frustration of his burden, the sheer magnitude of his mission – and he had fallen into a trap, a promise of the familiar that had only served to remind him of his mistakes.  Kaidan watched those blue eyes fall to the deck.  The man who had looked up at him with his heart in his eyes now hid his gaze behind an expression of regret, and Kaidan took a step toward him.

“Shepard, talk to me.”

_I’m sorry, Kaidan.  I’m so sorry—_

“I’m fine, really,” was all he could say.

“Bull,” Kaidan muttered.  “This is all about Horizon, isn’t it?  The diversion to Ontarom, this ‘chat.’  What’s the matter?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, Kaidan.”

“Doesn’t seem like ‘nothing’ from where I’m standing.”

He could never fool Kaidan.  And he knew that.  He stayed quiet as Kaidan sighed and glanced at the window.

“I trust you to know your own limits, Shepard,” he started, finally looking back at him, “but apparently what you think you need to do and what I think you need to do are, uh… a little different.”

Shepard swallowed hard.  “You’re angry.”

“Not angry,” Kaidan clarified.  “More worried than anything, I guess.  I thought you might want to slow down for your own sake, if not for mine.”  Then his shoulders stiffened, and he bit his lip while he mentally trudged through his words.  “I mean, I thought that we…”

His sentence trailed off into an unsettled silence, but Shepard did not need to hear the rest of it to know where it had intended to go.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

Kaidan rubbed the side of his neck, and Shepard cringed when he saw that telltale nervous habit. He had never wanted to see Kaidan so uncertain of where they stood, even now.  “And here I was hoping that you’d forgive yourself for Horizon after you went back there,” Kaidan said.

Shepard turned his head away, and only one word managed to dislodge itself from his constricted throat.  “Kaidan.”

Kaidan let his arm fall to his side.  “You said you wanted to turn to me when things get grim.”

“I did— I do.”

“So do it.”  He gripped Shepard’s arm, and Shepard looked up, bright blue piercing through the dull haze of regret.  “Please.”

His grip grew a little tighter, and Shepard shuddered under the motion when he saw that genuine light in Kaidan’s eyes.

“I just found you, Shepard.  Don’t make me watch you lose yourself.”

“Kaidan… you’re right.”

Shepard turned to fully face him, and Kaidan let his arm fall.  Shepard took a few breaths, his lungs still burning on the residual embers of his fight and his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach, but he swallowed hard despite them all and finally let it all out:

“You know why Horizon meant so much to me?  Watching you walk away from me, thinking I lost you for good… that was the moment I realized that I loved you.  I made the wrong decision that day, treating you like I did, saying all the shit that I did.  I couldn’t stop fighting.  And I had no one. Nothing to live for but the mission and the adrenaline in my veins.”

_It was like I was still dead._

“I knew you were gone.  You walked away like you should’ve, and I couldn’t let you go.  So I lied to myself and to you.  I loved you then.  And it never stopped, Kaidan.  After all this time, I know what it was about Horizon that made me regret every minute of it, and every wrong decision I’ve made ever since.  I loved you, and I lost you.”

He let out a weak chuckle, a sound of disbelief that he would have ever admitted this – to Kaidan or to himself – but his shoulders relaxed, the coil low in his stomach loosened, and his chest no longer felt tight and restricted.

“You’ll never lose me,” he said, the edges of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.  “I love you.”

Kaidan gazed back at him with a new light to his eyes, but the faint, embarrassed flush that came to his face was accompanied by an unusual quirk of one eyebrow.  “You, uh… you do realize that you’ve never said that to me before, right?” he asked.

Shepard hesitated.  “Now I do,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck.  “Well, shit.  Some big reveal, huh?  Guess I fucked that up, too.”

“Shepard, it’s okay,” Kaidan said, a sheepish smile barely beginning to creep over his face.  “I didn’t realize it’s been that long for you.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“I think— no, never mind.”

“What?” Shepard pressed, brows upturned with sudden apprehension.

Kaidan sighed once more, glancing off to the side to avoid that genuine concern.  “It’s just… when I saw you go down with the _Normandy_ in the Collector attack, that’s— I think that’s when I knew for sure.”

It took a brief moment for Shepard to process what that meant.  “Kaidan,” he said, but he paused there on a rampant thought that refused to settle into place. Whether it was guilt or shame that had settled into his stomach would perhaps remain forever unknown.  “I had no idea.”

“It wasn’t something I really wanted to advertise back on the _SR-1_ ,” Kaidan replied, shrugging his shoulders as he looked back at Shepard.  “I mean, the regs and all.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Time, I guess.  Took me a long time to mourn you, and then to get my head back on straight after I saw you there on Horizon.  Took me a long time to work up the nerve to finally say something once I got back on the _Normandy_ , and then… well, you know.”

Shepard had to look away.  _And then I shot you down._

“You’ve been waiting a long time, Kaidan,” he said.  “Too long.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan replied, his voice hitching on one of those breathy half-laughs, that sound so characteristic of him and yet pained in its own way.  “It hasn’t been easy.”

Shepard finally looked back at him.  “If I would’ve told you on Horizon, I wonder where we’d be at now.”

“Back then, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you anyway.”

“Yeah, probably not.  I wouldn’t have believed me, either.”

“So can we leave it behind us?”

“Yeah.”  Shepard shook his head, though he was not sure at whom the action was directed.  “It’s done.”

He could never change what had happened that day on Horizon, or any of the mistakes he had made since, but, if nothing else, he had faced the horrors of Sanctuary and so many other atrocities that lingered in the dark regions of space, waiting for him, threatening to make him unravel at the seams – and Kaidan had been there, waiting for Shepard to come to him, ready to put him back together and move forward on a promise of so much more than he had ever known.

Kaidan suddenly let out a chuckle, and Shepard turned his head slightly in confusion.

“It’s funny,” Kaidan started, half a smirk stretching over his lips, “hearing you say it out loud makes it seem…”

“Real?”

“Yeah, I mean, you know— I don’t know.”  Kaidan’s smile faded, but his voice remained light.  “After all this time, huh… never thought I’d go down the road that I did.  It’s been rough.  Painful, even.  But I never thought I’d end up here with you, either.”

Shepard nearly cringed when he heard that.  “I’ve made so many mistakes, Kaidan…”

“It’s been hell lately,” he replied.  “I know that.  You know that.  The fact that you’re still standing here is, well… amazing.  What you’ve accomplished since all this started is just amazing, you know?  No one else could’ve done what you’ve done and come out the other end still standing.”

“You could’ve.  You’re a strong man.  I need that strength.  I need you.”

“And that’s something I wouldn’t want any other way.”

_This isn’t a mistake.  I want this.  I need this.  I always have._

With a teasing grin, Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him.  “You know, I haven’t heard you say it.”

“Heh, well, I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“Indulge me.”

“Hm.”

Kaidan took a step forward and angled his head, that upturn of his lips sending Shepard’s heart careening into his ribcage in anticipation and want and need and… 

“I love you, John.”

Hope. 

Shepard’s grin grew a little wider.  “Hey…”

“What, no one calls you by your first name?  Or you didn’t think I knew what it was?”

“Neither.”

“So you don’t like it?”

“Not at all.  I do like it.”

“Good.  Feels a little weird, though.  It’ll take some getting used to.”

His hands slid up to Shepard’s shoulder blades, fingertips twitching against the padding of his uniform when their chests came into contact, fabric brushing against fabric, clasps clicking against one another when there was no space left between the two of them.  Kaidan made a motion to move one of his hands from Shepard’s back to his face, but it stopped halfway there when he remembered seeing the bruise on his jaw, and instead it sprawled out at Shepard’s waist in a gentle hold, smoothing over the fabric and the sore muscles buried beneath.

Shepard cupped Kaidan’s jaw.  Hands that had long since been accustomed to being clenched into fists or curled around the handle of a gun now held on with a gentle touch, soft strokes against Kaidan’s cheeks and temples that revered everything he was and everything he had always been.  The feeling – the warmth of Kaidan’s skin beneath the pads of his fingertips and the palms of his hands, the subtle shifts in the lines on Kaidan’s face as he smiled back at him, the faintest sensation of every breath wafting about the air between them – was an affirmation of life beyond wandering from one fight to the next, a promise of hope and purpose and meaning in every word and action.

Shepard leaned in and kissed him, matching the caresses of his lips with the tiny strokes of his thumbs against Kaidan’s cheeks, and in that moment he renewed the promise he had made when he first felt those lips against his own.

_I’ll never leave you behind again._

He pressed further, tilting his head to the side, claiming Kaidan’s lips on more fervent strokes, and Kaidan responded in earnest, meshing their lips together on every caress with a promise of his own: that they could move forward, that Horizon would be but a memory, that they could trust and appreciate and love one another like they always should have.  And Shepard fell into the motions, into the heat and the smile, into the feeling that, somewhere deep within, he had always known to be true. He was human, he was alive, and he was in love.

He had everything worth fighting for.

He parted from Kaidan with a fractured breath, caught somewhere between a sigh and a gasp, and merely looked at him: the smile on his face, the lines smoothed from his brow, the brown eyes that somehow still reflected the galaxy back at him in every tiny flicker of starlight.

 _He_ was someone to live for.

Shepard’s hands trailed down Kaidan’s cheeks on two final soft strokes, and then he took a step back.  “I’m going to send the data to Hackett and see what he wants to do about mobilizing the fleets,” he said.

But Kaidan kept his hands at Shepard’s back and waist, a quiet suggestion that he stay, if only for a moment longer.  “So this is it,” he said.  “We’re gonna’ assault the Cerberus base.”

“Yeah,” Shepard said, “and you’re coming with me.”

“Gladly.”

Kaidan let his arms fall to his sides, and, despite the loss of that touch, Shepard smiled at him, that small, appreciative smile that said so much.

“Thank you, Kaidan… for everything.”

“You know that I’m here – always.”


	23. Time

Kaidan was realistic enough to know that time was not on his side.

He had been living on borrowed time since the beginning: since the galaxy learned about the impending return of the Reapers, since the war began, since he saw Earth burning from the open hangar door of the _Normandy’s_ shuttle bay – when Shepard took a leap of faith and he had grabbed his arm to help steady him, when Shepard stood up straight and faced Anderson for what seemed like the final time, when Shepard received his Alliance dog tags and then took another burden upon his shoulders.

A burden too large for one man.

Time held little sympathy, dragging them all from one corner of the galaxy to the next, only to force the air from their lungs and relish in their struggle for air under the weight of so much death.

But Kaidan had hope.  He carried it with him at all times.  On occasion, it was heavy, difficult to bear when circumstances looked their darkest, but it had never left him.  He shared it with Shepard, offering it whenever time tightened its grip on the commander’s throat and threatened to silence him for good.

Kaidan had hope when he again reached out to his Spec Ops squad and learned that they were on the ground in Chicago.  The situation was bleak, but they were alive and fighting.

Kaidan had hope when he thought of all the hell that he had already trudged through to get to where he was now.  The road had been harsh, but it was finally coming to an end.

Kaidan had hope when he remembered the look in Shepard’s eyes as he told him that he loved him.  The words were so simple, but they meant everything.

The _Normandy_ was ten hours away from the Horsehead Nebula, and time pressed mercilessly on toward the assault on the Cerberus base – toward the beginning of the end – but Kaidan had hope.

He continued to carry it with him during the quiet elevator ride up to Shepard’s cabin, where he found the door’s lock mechanism glowing with that inviting green hue.  And this time, he carried two tumblers and a familiar bottle of TM-88 Peruvian whiskey with him on the hope that Shepard would take few minutes to relax and let himself breathe in the midst of the galaxy-wide war that now bore down upon his shoulders with more weight than ever.

The door opened to reveal Shepard pacing the deck in short lines between the desk and the aquarium at the other end of the room, his eyes fixed down on the datapad in his hand.

“Hey,” Kaidan said.  It was simple, but it was more than enough.  “How are you holding up?”

Shepard looked up at him from beneath a furrowed brow, a frown staining his lips.  “Having trouble focusing,” he answered, frustration evident in the tone of his voice.

“Got a lot on your mind, I bet,” Kaidan said.

Shepard set the datapad aside and sighed.  “Too much.”

“I hear you.”  Kaidan held up the tumblers and bottle a little higher in gesture.  “That’s why I brought this.”

Shepard turned his head, and finally a smile formed upon his face – small and subtle, but it was there.  “That’s something I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.

“I had it stowed in the Crew Quarters for, you know… safekeeping.  Kinda’ surprised me that no one found it, actually.”

“I think I’ve still got the rest of that Serrice ice brandy and a few bottles of beer stashed around here somewhere.”

“Well, let’s add this to the collection, then.”

Shepard gestured his head toward the small staircase.  They met at the sofa and sat side by side as though it were instinct.  Kaidan set the tumblers on the center table and uncapped the bottle of whiskey, feeling Shepard’s eyes on him the entire time, but the feeling itself was warm, welcoming.  He filled both tumblers halfway, looked up at Shepard, and studied the appreciation that was so clearly scrawled all over his face.

They had thought about each other for such a long time… long before this impending fight, long before they had returned to service on the _Normandy_ together, long before they had stood opposite one another on Horizon.  And they had both felt some gravitational pull drawing them together for far longer than that.

Shepard took one of the tumblers and cocked an eyebrow at him.  “You trying to get me drunk, Kaidan?”

That lilt in his voice, that teasing little tone that Kaidan had previously hated to hear from him, was now a hint of hope: maybe Shepard would set aside the burden, if only for a moment.  When Shepard took a few sips of whiskey, Kaidan smiled at him – at seeing the softening creases upon his brow and the luster returning to his eyes, at seeing the dregs of command slide from his shoulders, at seeing the man relieve Commander Shepard of duty and let John Shepard take that well-deserved moment of respite.

“No, I’m trying to get you to relax,” Kaidan replied as he took the other tumbler.

“Ah,” Shepard said, his brows arching.  “Sanity check?”

Kaidan smiled at him.  “Sanity check.”

“Sounds good right about now.”

Shepard held the tumbler out, and Kaidan again filled it halfway and returned the whiskey bottle to the table, glancing back at him to find Shepard downing the amber liquid on a few larger swigs.

“You doing okay?” he asked as he began to refill his own glass.

“Yeah,” Shepard answered, voice roughened by the strong alcohol, a persistent taste on the back of his tongue and upon his palate.  “Sent the data to Hackett.  His fleets are mobilizing and heading for the Horsehead Nebula, the Crucible is ready to go, and once we launch the attack on the Cerberus base, there’s no turning back.”

Kaidan felt his fingers curl a little tighter around the glass.

“So… this really is it.”

Shepard lowered his arm, the emptied tumbler hitting the top of his thigh with a muffled sound against the fabric of his uniform.  “Yeah,” he said, turning his eyes down toward the glass in his hand.  “One last fight against Cerberus.  One last fight to take them out of this war.”

“And then we’ll finish this once and for all,” Kaidan replied.

“Heh, yeah.”  He looked up to find Kaidan’s eyes so intently set upon him, so deep with meaning and purpose, so pure with sincerity and hope.  “For now, though, there’s just the wait to look forward to.”

Kaidan offered the whiskey to him, and Shepard shook his head.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Kaidan said as he set the bottle on the table and capped it.  “When this war is over, we’ll finish it.”

Shepard looked at him like he was suddenly struggling to breathe, like his words were caught in his throat, and Kaidan felt his chest tighten at the sight.

“Kaidan.”  It was all Shepard could manage to say.

He swallowed hard.  “What?”

Shepard’s gaze fell away to the floor.  “I just—”

“Hey, let’s focus on this,” Kaidan said, placing a consoling hand on Shepard’s knee.  “Let’s focus on where we are right now.”

His eyes softened as he looked up.  “Kaidan…”

“This moment right here… it means everything to me.  _You_ mean everything to me.”

“Yeah.”

Kaidan smiled, not quite wide enough to fully conceal his worry, but earnest just the same.  “No matter what it seems like right now, someday we’ll look back on this moment and remember it as one of the good times.”

And then the look in Shepard’s eyes became something Kaidan had not seen in so long.  Shepard grabbed his hand, but the hold was unstable, fingers trembling, erratic, unnerved, and Kaidan’s eyes widened when he finally recognized it.

Shepard was afraid – but not of death, not of dying.  It was fear of the unknown, of not knowing what would come next, of being certain of nothing else but the warmth of Kaidan’s hand and the pulse shared between their fingers.

“I’m not doing this without you,” he said.  “I can’t.”

“I’m here,” Kaidan replied, squeezing Shepard’s hand.  “Always will be.”

Shepard cupped Kaidan’s face with unsteady hands, his lip quivering, his eyes downcast, his fingers trembling against Kaidan’s cheeks on a few fading nerve impulses, and Kaidan trailed his hands over Shepard's chest and let them settle at his shoulders, holding him still, grounding him in the moment, in the time they had left.  Shepard looked up, the sharp blue hue of his eyes cutting through the tension that lingered on the rest of his face, and Kaidan leaned forward and kissed him.

It was chaste at first, a quick peck of the lips, a brief reminder that they were here, together, in shared time.  But after Kaidan retreated a few inches, Shepard pulled him back into a more heated kiss, fervent strokes on warm skin, the faintest hint of whiskey in the breaths that wafted into the air between them on the disjointed caresses of their lips.

Every time they ended up here, every time they held each other in a warm embrace and breathed one another in, every time they kissed with the unchecked passion of their hearts, time itself stood still.

Kaidan pulled back, tracing a fingertip over the edge of the bruise that still lay buried beneath the stubble on Shepard’s jaw.  It had already begun to fade, but it was still there. And the sight of it, the lightest touch of his finger over it, dredged up images of the stoic façade that Shepard had donned so often before.  It had been the only way for him to take on every fight and every wound and every scar without collapsing under the weight of his duty.  Only now, with the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, could he free himself from that burden.

But Shepard saw only the scars on Kaidan.

He lifted a hand to Kaidan’s arm, fingers curling around the hard muscle exposed beneath the bunched sleeve of his uniform.  His thumb circled over the edges of the scar there, ridges of discolored tissue rough under his fingertip – a scar he had put there, evidence of a burden that he had never wanted to share – but it was proof of everything he already knew: that Kaidan always had his back, that Kaidan was committed to the mission, that Kaidan wanted to take on a piece of that burden and relieve him of the crushing weight, that Kaidan loved him.

In a war so callously uncertain and in times so cruelly silent, he knew with absolute certainty that Kaidan loved him.

Kaidan had always loved him.

Kaidan had endured a burden of his own for far too long.

Without a word, Shepard leaned in to kiss him, holding on to him as they grasped at each other’s uniforms, fingers desperately working the clasps and buckles.  Shepard trailed his hands beneath the hem of Kaidan’s skivvy shirt and tugged it off him, casting it aside to the floor as some afterthought and finally smiling into the kiss as Kaidan shivered under his touch – the callused fingertips at his nipples, the rough palms sprawled out over his pecs.

They kicked their boots off and let them join the jumbled pile that was forming about them as they undressed, each content in the wordless breaths, hot and heavy against their flesh.  But then Shepard cradled Kaidan’s jaw in his hands and tilted his head to the side and kissed him harder, every stroke more eager than the last, every teasing caress of his lips both a promise of more and a plea for it.

“Y-You do know… what you want, huh,” Kaidan stammered between short kisses.  He gripped the waistband of Shepard’s trousers and cocked an eyebrow, a suggestive gesture of his own, which Shepard promptly returned with a long stroke of his tongue up the side of Kaidan’s neck.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he said, lips moving against Kaidan’s neck on every word.  “You’re exactly what I need right now.”

Kaidan tugged Shepard’s trousers off, waiting until the material collapsed about his feet before palming him through his boxer-briefs.  Shepard groaned, and Kaidan shuddered under that deep, resonating voice against his skin.  “Yeah,” he said, hand spreading out over the material, fingers teasing over the edges of the bulge straining against it, “me too.”

Their fingers slipped past the waistbands of their boxer-briefs, taking each other in hand on languid strokes as they kissed, exploring hard muscles and claiming warm skin with every motion.  Their bare chests brushed together on every breath, bringing them closer and closer, sharing the same air, living the same moment.

And when they could finally stand exposed before one another, there was nothing left between them but the time they had here, now, in this cabin and in each other’s arms.

Kaidan led Shepard to the bed and eased him down onto it, only to find himself looking up with surprise after Shepard gripped his biceps, kissed him, and rolled them over.

Shepard traced his lips over the hollow of Kaidan’s throat, down the edge of his collarbone, and finally to the dip between his pecs, peppering the edges of the muscles with unbearably soft kisses.  Kaidan tilted his head back into the sheet and let out a groan, light and restrained, and Shepard grinned against the shuddering flesh beneath his lips, drawing his tongue across that heated skin toward a nipple.  When Kaidan cried out, louder and unashamed, Shepard swirled his tongue around it until it was a hard nub, and then he pulled back and rolled it between two fingers while he reached down to stroke Kaidan with his free hand.

Kaidan was writhing beneath him, and it was a beautiful sight: the sharp angles of his face contorting with pleasure, the lines forming between his brows as he clenched his eyes shut and rolled his head to one side, the parted lips now quivering on loud moans and rapid breaths.

Blunt fingernails dug into his back, and Shepard took both of their erections in hand, stroking them together until Kaidan cried out some muddled, pleasured sound that may have been his name.

But it soon faded into a single curse.  “S-Shit—”

And Shepard stroked faster, harder, while his other hand left Kaidan’s chest and cascaded down his side, rough fingertips tracing over every muscle, every scar, every inch of heated skin that shivered under his touch.  Watching Kaidan gasp and groan and shudder beneath him was so incredible, a sight that was meant for his eyes alone: Kaidan biting back moans of desire only to have them forced out by every perfect stroke of his hand, Kaidan struggling to keep his arms raised to hold on to him like a lifeline, Kaidan surrendering every last remnant of control to him.

Shepard drew back, grinding his erection down against Kaidan’s on a few more strokes, and shifted back on his haunches to reposition himself.  When Kaidan opened his eyes and looked up, a husky mutter of disapproval boiling out of his throat at the loss of contact, Shepard smiled at him, earnest and tender, and the tantalizingly slow curl of those lips sent a jolt down Kaidan’s spine.

One hand fanned out over Kaidan’s waist, thumb tracing aimless lines over the slant of his hip and fingers grazing over the contours of his muscles, and the other hand wrapped around the base of Kaidan’s length.  When Shepard leaned down and trailed his tongue up the shaft, Kaidan gasped and arched into it.

“Oh, god…”  A breathless cry, soon rewarded with a few pointed dips of Shepard’s tongue over the head and to the slit.

And when Shepard took it into his mouth on one motion, lips smoothing down a few inches and tongue curling along the underside, Kaidan was lost.  His eyes clenched shut.  His mouth opened to a gape.  His abs tensed and flexed.  His hips shifted up into that wet heat.  Shepard pulled back, agonizingly slow, tracing the tip of his tongue around the edges of the head, and Kaidan bit his lip to suppress the groan that welled in the pit of his stomach.

But he let it out the moment that Shepard took the entire length on a single movement.  Any words he may have had were buried beneath a moan of sheer desire.  When Shepard pulled back, flattening his tongue on a long, languid stroke along the vein on the underside, Kaidan felt that twist low in his gut that sent a spark back up his spine, a message lost somewhere between his chest and head and escaping only on a hitched breath.

He pushed himself up on his forearms and let out a sharp groan when Shepard looked up at him, stark blue eyes peering up from beneath a strong brow as he quickened his pace, long strokes over the entire shaft, lips sliding over warm flesh and tongue dipping toward the head on each slide back.  Kaidan brought a hand to Shepard’s temple, fingertips smoothing over the nape of his neck, a quivering palm against the hinge of his jaw, feeling every motion as clearly as he could see it. And soon he was panting, losing himself in that feeling and view and undeniable pleasure.

“Stop,” he finally choked out.

His hand trembled at Shepard’s temple, his eyes were half-lidded with desire, and his stomach was tense, a coil somewhere deep within tightening until it was on the verge of collapse.  And Shepard pulled back, letting the tip slide from between his lips with a sharp exhale, a hot breath against overheated skin that made Kaidan shudder.

Kaidan pulled him by the shoulder, dragging him forward into a heated kiss, savoring every taste on his tongue and every breath that managed to escape and waft about his neck.  Shepard moved forward, straddled Kaidan’s hips, and fell into the feeling: the warmth of their flesh, the strokes of their lips, the strength of their hands.  He closed his eyes and held on as Kaidan rolled them over once more, only opening them again when Kaidan parted from his lips on a breathy sigh.

He found Kaidan gazing down at him, and with that contented smile, with the faintest blue hue from the aquarium accenting the angles of his face, he was beautiful.  Kaidan’s hands trailed down Shepard’s shoulders as he drew back, fingertips following the shape of every muscle on their way down to his waist, feather-light touches that revered everything laid bare beneath him – everything that Shepard was.

Hard muscles shaped by combat.  Long scars drawn by defeat.  Deft hands roughened by war.

Tired eyes revived by love.

“Kaidan…”

Hearing his name leaving those lips in that tone was everything he had ever wanted.  Seeing those eyes gazing back at him with trust and appreciation was everything he had ever needed.  If time were to end at that moment, he would have no regrets.

“Yeah,” he said, cupping Shepard’s cheek in his palm, “I’m here.”

He leaned down to kiss Shepard, a soft peck or two on the corner of his lip, gentle strokes over dark stubble, and then reached for the nightstand drawer.  Shepard’s eyes followed Kaidan’s hands, watching them uncap the bottle of lube and spread the gel over two fingers, and he bit his lip to quell the moan that had lodged in his throat.  Kaidan set the bottle aside and again leaned down to kiss him, long, fervent strokes of the lips that sent his nerves reeling and his gut tensing with anticipation.

When Kaidan drew back and looked down at him, every sincere concern piercing through the desire that welled in his eyes and radiated against his flushed cheeks, Shepard swallowed his own voice and waited for that predictable question.

“You okay?”

Shepard chuckled, frail but honest.

“More than okay,” he answered, bearing a weak grin.  And Kaidan smiled back at him, that earnest stretch of the lips that spoke volumes without words.

A finger traced around his entrance, small circles drawn in agonizingly slow motions, teasing and hot.  Shepard closed his eyes to the touch, the feel, the tension palpable in the air and tasteless on his tongue.

“Fuck, Kaidan,” he said, nearly at a whispered volume, “do it.”

He cried out between clenched teeth when the slickened finger pressed inside, his hips nearly jerking away from it on reflex, the pull of reluctant muscles still foreign to his body, but he relaxed as best he could and stilled himself, loosening his vise grip on the sheet and tilting his head to the side.  He gasped when he felt Kaidan’s mouth at his neck, a string of soft kisses weaving its way from the hinge of his jaw to his collarbone.  He turned his head back and grasped Kaidan’s shoulders, quivering hands soon tracing over the nape of his neck and drawing him up to meet his lips, to pull him into a kiss that said everything he never could.

Shepard continued to tremble under the intrusion, but his grip grew a little tighter and his thighs spread a little further – an invitation soon accepted with a second finger sliding in beside the first.  He parted from Kaidan on a fractured moan, every sensation tightening the coil low in his gut, every gentle motion of those fingers sending sparks up his spine that caught in his throat as breathless sighs and groans.  When the two fingers were buried in to the last knuckle, Shepard arched into it, gasping at the feeling of the heat inside of him and the brush of his erection against Kaidan’s stomach.

“K-Kaidan,” he finally stammered out, pausing to bite back the loud moan that threatened to drown out his words, but it festered in the hollow of his throat.  He pushed himself up on his forearms to kiss Kaidan, opening his mouth to his, releasing that suppressed groan between a few hard strokes of the lips.  When he finally drew back, he shivered under the sight of a string of saliva collapsing between them. “Please, Kaidan… I need this.”

He cast a hand over the nape of Kaidan’s neck and held on like he was the only thing keeping him grounded in the moment, a gravitational force all his own – and perhaps he was.  He tipped his head down with a shuddering sigh, tension coiling in his gut as he watched Kaidan remove his fingers and then reach for the lube.  Steadying himself with one hand at Kaidan’s shoulder, he swallowed a choked breath as Kaidan began to stroke himself, spreading the lube evenly over every inch, until Shepard took it in his free hand, working Kaidan’s hard length with much faster strokes, reveling in the lust-drunk moan that Kaidan breathed against him. 

Kaidan shuddered forward on an aborted attempt to kiss him, and he drew back a few inches and tilted his head down, only managing to stutter out, “I-I can’t…”

His words died in the air between them.  Soon he was gently thrusting forward into it, matching Shepard’s motions over every inch until he could no longer stand it, and Shepard read the pure want and need in those half-lidded eyes and in the shattered string of groans that fell from his lips.  He let go, sharp blue eyes stained with desire.

Kaidan spread his hands out over the angles of Shepard’s hips, fingertips sinking into the sharp junctures between his waist and his spread thighs, and pressed forward into the tight ring of muscle.  Shepard cried out, his head sinking forward onto Kaidan’s shoulder, his hand clenching against hard muscle and inadvertently sliding over sweat-slicked skin, his erratic breaths wafting about the space between them.  Kaidan planted a few kisses on his temple, soft, appreciative, trusting and desiring trust, but still Shepard quivered against him – against the heat, the friction, the pull of reluctant muscle.

Kaidan turned his head further toward Shepard’s.  “You feel amazing,” he whispered, lips gracing over the shell of Shepard’s ear on every syllable.

But Shepard did not need words – not now.  He began rocking his hips, urging Kaidan on with a few motions back against him, taking on every one of the shallow thrusts into him.  He gripped Kaidan’s shoulders for leverage and met every thrust with an eager moan, falling into the feeling until there was nothing left, nothing outside of the two of them, together, in this warm space.

Shepard suddenly collapsed to the sheet and pulled him down, meshing their lips on imperfect strokes and wrapping his arms around his back, bringing their bodies as close together as they could be.  Their bare chests writhed against each other, every ripple of muscle slicked with a fine sheen of sweat.  Their foreheads pressed together, noses touching on every subtle shift in angle as they kissed over and over.  And Kaidan locked his arms around Shepard’s torso in return, muscles flexing and tensing beneath his shoulder blades, strong hands cradling the back of his head, fingertips reveling in the feel of buzzed hair against them.

There was no space left between them.  No room for thought.  No doubts.  No regrets.

Shepard tilted his head back against the sheet, his lips sliding out from beneath Kaidan’s on a long moan.  Kaidan trailed his tongue up Shepard’s neck, and Shepard held on for all that he could, his nails digging into Kaidan’s back, his palms sweating in the heat shared between them, his arms trembling against the flexing muscles on every one of Kaidan’s thrusts into him.

His lungs were hot and his chest was heaving on staggered gasps and moans.  His breaths were shallow and unrewarding.  The air was thick with desire and the sound of flesh grazing over flesh.  But still he struggled to breathe it all in, determined to say the words he should have said so many times before.

“K-Kaidan, I… I-I love you—”

Kaidan lifted himself up to meet Shepard’s eyes, and he found hope reflected back at him in the shine accenting that bright blue.  In the shadows that outlined every angle of his face, in the short panting breaths that escaped his parted lips, in the sweat that beaded upon his brow and trailed down his temples with every subtle movement, Shepard was there, feeling, knowing – all of who he was now laid bare, alive and breathing in this single moment in time.

In that look, that shared gaze into one another’s eyes, there truly was nothing in the galaxy but the two of them.

Kaidan brushed a hand over Shepard’s cheek.  “I love you, too, John.”

And then Shepard looked up at him, eyes unfathomably deep and still full to the brim.

They cupped each other’s faces in strong hands, fingers sliding over sweat-dampened skin and stubble, lips stroking together on fervent motions, so passionate and intimate in this tiny space between them, a space all their own.

When they parted, Shepard panted his name between breaths, a prayer that, no matter what happened in the coming day, this feeling would never fade.

Kaidan’s thrusts began to falter.  His brow ran with sweat as his muscles flexed and tensed.  He slowly unraveled at the seams until only Shepard’s voice held him together.

And when Shepard looked up at him – his heart again in his eyes, where it had always belonged – and whispered his name, a low and husky word that slipped out of a genuine smile, he shuddered forward, buried himself to the hilt, and came.  Shepard held him, kissed him, loved him, breathed against him and felt the heavy breaths against himself in return, hands tracing over his body on aimless motions, so close to his own release that his eyes were nearly pleading for it.

Kaidan knew.

He reached down to stroke him, pre-cum and sweat sliding up and over the tip of his length.  Every motion was smooth and controlled and yet quick and passionate, thumb flicking over the sensitive bundle of nerves on the underside of the head, and Shepard slowly lost himself in the perfection of each stroke.  He nearly whimpered under the tension low in his gut, but soon he found his soft cries muffled by Kaidan’s lips.

Shepard moaned into the kiss as he came in his hand, spilling between their bodies as they writhed against one another on every residual thrust, every breath, every spasm of hard muscle and stroke of rough skin.  He held on, his thighs twitching against Kaidan’s waist, his abs tensing under every stroke, his eyes clenching shut as he rode the last waves of climax.  And Kaidan drew back, watching the last drops of cum fall to Shepard’s stomach, a soft groan escaping his lips at the sight of Shepard’s eyes slowly opening to meet his gaze.

“Kaidan,” he started, a word broken into too many syllables on a hitched breath, “I—”

“Shh…”

Kaidan kissed him, tasting salt on their skin and whiskey in their shared breaths, and trailed his other hand up Shepard’s waist and to the dip between his pecs.  There, beneath his palm, Shepard’s heart was beating, counting time with rhythmic certainty, and no words were needed.

There were no words when they toweled off the sweat on their brows and the mess on their stomachs.  There were no words when they returned to the bed in an embrace, Kaidan’s strong arms wrapped around him and Kaidan’s lips pressed against the nape of his neck in soft kisses, over and over. 

Not until he heard Kaidan’s voice behind him, airy and light, as though lost in a dream.

“We’re here.”

After all this time.

Shepard closed his eyes and let the stars take him away into an inevitably restless nightmare – the price of his choices, the price he paid every night.

But that night, he fell asleep with a faint smile on his lips, with the small hope that he could dream, too.


	24. Whisper

_“Shepard.”_

Fog weaved between the trunks of dead trees.  Dark leaves wavered on a nonexistent breeze.  A low whisper wafted about his entire being as he stood there, boots planted on a dirt path that was littered with fallen branches and dead leaves.

_“Shepard.”_

There was only one path.  Only one direction forward.  No options to consider.  No decision to make.

Every move was a struggle, as though he were trudging through mud, straining to pick up his feet and keep treading down that path, and the reward for his efforts was a muddle of whispers in his ear, louder, haunting his every step with familiar words from fallen souls.

_“No apologies.  Did what was right.  Hope you’d do the same if necessary.”_

The gray haze bore down upon him, pursuing his every move, extinguishing the light behind him as he continued on that path toward the clearing at the other end.  There was no turning back, no retracting his decisions or his mistakes, only a faint light that beckoned him toward the point where it might all come to an end – where he might know what was right, where he might find peace, where he might finally dream.

_“It seems there will be no one to mourn me when I die.  You are the only friend I’ve made in ten years.”_

The air was thick with death.  The ground was stained with ash and soot.  The dim gray haze began to sink into darkness.

_“Shepard.”_

But he kept moving.

_“Screw that.  I can hold them off.  Go back and get Alenko.  You know it’s the right choice, LT.”_

The whispered voices of those he could not save had been given form in oily shadows, and they steadily dragged dusk with them as he struggled to outrun that darkness, every step in slow motion, every footfall silenced by the cacophony of death as he reached the end.  His vision blurred, darkness seeping in at the edges in chaotic lines like ink through wet paper.  And in the center, perfectly clear, was the boy he had left behind on Earth, now in the arms of a man he never thought he would see again.

A man who embraced death itself.  A man who smiled from behind a raging fire and breathed in the smoke.  A man who let himself fade into the darkness, suffocating without protest, finally at peace with meeting the light on the other side.

And when that man disappeared behind the flames, Shepard saw his own eyes staring back at him from beyond the grave.

He woke with a start, head jerking against Kaidan’s forearm and shoulders stiffening with the tension that radiated about them, still lost under the influence of a few residual nerve impulses, still striving to return to the reality that pursued him everywhere.  In strained muscles and stinging eyes and shallow breaths, he was awake, alive, and fighting – fighting his nightmares, fighting his decisions, fighting his lies, fighting his failures.  And in the expanse of space visible through the overhead window, he saw the faint glint of lost friends’ eyes staring back from the darkness between the stars, with that stark blue glare piercing through them all.

An endless nightmare had stolen the hope that he had carried with him to sleep.

He pushed himself up, hesitating halfway through the motion to watch Kaidan stir at his side and then settle against the pillow, and then lifted the coverlet from his legs, casting them over the edge of the bed as he leaned forward, head and shoulders heavy with entirely too much weight.  And he stared at nothing, eyes scouring the deck beneath his feet and finding only his own silence, until he heard a deep sigh behind him.

“What’s up?”

Shepard felt his hands grip the sheet a little tighter, an involuntary reflex, a tiny, rebellious hope that Kaidan had dreamed of a future, of a life beyond all the death that waited for both of them just outside the cabin door.

Still, he closed his eyes, knowing full well that he would not find refuge in that familiar darkness, but silently hoping that it would defy expectations and take him into a dream, a promise of the same future.

“Are we going to make it, Kaidan?”

Another sigh filled the empty space behind him.  There was a slight shift in the mattress as Kaidan pushed himself up on one forearm and moved toward him.  Shepard sat up, hands firmly planted on his knees, eyes still fixed on the floor as Kaidan settled into place and looked at him.  But he could not return the gesture.

So often in the past, Kaidan had needed to hear the absolute certainty in Shepard’s voice, that tenacious tone that served as a proud declaration of everything they lived for and fought for.  But now Shepard’s words were quivering, wilting under their own weight, uncertain, aimless, losing strength and hope with each passing syllable.

He would be Shepard’s strength.  He would be the hand that reached out to draw Shepard up to the surface when he was drowning in his own guilt.  He would give Shepard the same hope that he inspired in everyone else.

“We’re ready,” he said, steady, stable, certain.  Only when Shepard turned his head and looked at him did he continue, “You’ve put the people together, the vision… and what you’ve done, John, is build hope.”

Shepard looked at him as though he were falling.  He hesitated on a broken thought, and Kaidan waited.

“I’m glad I inspire that in you, but sometimes…”

Shepard stopped himself there.

When the Reapers hit Earth and he watched Vancouver burn from the open hangar door of the _Normandy’s_ shuttle bay, he had heard the screams of the people he left behind, piercing through the silence that he had tried so hard to will upon it.  He had seen the evac shuttles burst under the fire of Reaper beams and the bodies pile up in the streets below him, images that had been burned into his retinas despite his every attempt to tell himself that leaving was the right thing to do.

The galaxy was hanging by a thread.  Everything it had ever known was teetering on the brink of annihilation.  So much had been destroyed already.

_Sometimes I wonder if I’ve already lost._

Still, with Kaidan there, gazing back at him with that earnest hope, there was a flicker of light in the midst of all that darkness.

 _But_ we _haven’t lost yet._

“You’re right.”  He brought a hand to Kaidan’s face, his palm moving slightly with the smile that stretched over his cheeks, and it soon fell to Kaidan’s collarbone, causing those brown eyes to flick down and then back up.  “Give us hope and a fighting chance – hell, the Reapers better watch themselves.”

Deft fingers trailed up his neck and a thumb settled upon his chin, and then Shepard leaned in and kissed him, quick and soft, eyes opening as he drew back with a weak smile and the last remnants of his heart peering back at him through that gaze.

Shepard put on his uniform and made his way to the war room, where the central map had reality on prominent display.

The Fifth Fleet’s strike team was in position around the Cerberus base.  And, despite his initial reluctance to hear it, he knew that EDI was right to suggest that she go on the mission with them: with her knowledge of Cerberus algorithms and her platform’s updated protocols, she offered the best chance to break through the station’s security measures.

With the team geared up, Shepard made his way to the bridge for a status update.  Cerberus fighters surrounded the launch base and the Alliance foothold was stretching thin, so Shepard issued the order for EDI to head for the shuttle – and then Joker’s shock at hearing it made his stomach churn.  The pilot turned back in his chair, adjusted a few modules on the flight panel, and only broke his concentration when he heard heavy footfalls against the deck.

“Hey, Shepard,” Joker called, causing him to stop and look back over his shoulder.  The pilot never turned to look at him.  “Keep her safe.”

_I know this hurts… but it has to be this way._

He left Joker with a few simple words: “Same to you.”

With news that the Fifth Fleet had cut through the Cerberus fighter line, there was no better time to launch the shuttle.  This was their chance.  The fighting chance that he needed.

But when he stepped onto the shuttle and settled into the copilot’s chair, the orange console lights outlined the tired creases on his face and the furrow of his brow like a distant fire, steadily burning, slowly approaching… and with the shuttle launching from the bay and darting through the firefight in the empty space surrounding Cronos Station, he heard only one word.

_“Shepard.”_

The name, the story, the image and everything it stood for, with everything riding on its shoulders, now followed his every motion as the shuttle breached the station’s fighter hangar shield and careened to a grating halt against the deck.

Cerberus troops and mechs flooded the hangar, filling it with gunfire and smoke, with the sounds of death and the sight of blood, until it suddenly stopped and left an unsettled silence.

_“Shepard-Commander, help us.”_

A fighter launched from the other end of the room, engaging its thrusters and sending a resounding boom throughout the hangar and a shockwave that broke through his kinetic barrier.  He ducked behind the fallen crates near the shuttle, heart pounding against his chest and echoing against his eardrums, feeling every pulse of adrenaline through his veins and every sting of cold metal against the skin it never touched.

With a few more shots from his team, EDI confirmed that the fighter launch controls were accessible from the upper level.  Another firefight, another shot whizzing too close, another sideways glance at Kaidan barely falling behind cover in time to avoid shrapnel from an exploding grenade.

_“Please, call me Kelly.  It’s such an honor to work under you, Commander Shepard.”_

With the rotation controls overridden and the fighter directed at the bulkhead at the back of the hangar, there was suddenly too much noise: an explosion tearing through walls of metal, a shockwave sending his feet stumbling and his hands grasping a nearby crate for purchase, a clamor of footfalls and gunfire from the troops that poured out from the break in the station’s defenses like blood streaming from a raw wound.

Only a hail of returned gunfire could stop the bleeding.

_“Whatever you come up with, you can count me in.”_

As they maneuvered over the twisted metal of the bulkhead and made their way past the destructive flames in the hall, there was so much uncertainty, so much smoke and death and silence – nothing but the clicking modules of EDI’s security protocol decryption program and the crackling of fire at the other end of the hall.  When the door split open, there was nowhere to go but forward.

Corridors backlit by the orange glow of fire and the red streaks of warning strobe lights.  Gunfire from turrets and assault troopers alike.  Distant sounds of metal denting and warping under the collapse of bodies against it and the heat of fire overwhelming it.

_”Shepard.”_

After scaling the ladder at the end of the twisting corridors, there were terminals lining the walls of the otherwise empty reception room.  EDI suggested that Shepard might find one console’s information particularly interesting, and against his better judgment, he activated the module and watched the screen flicker and light up to show an unknown scientist and the Illusive Man conversing over a subject that he had long wanted to remain buried.  And with Kaidan standing behind him, watching and listening over his shoulder, Shepard swore he could feel his veins bulging out at the wrists as his hands curled into fists.

“It can’t be done,” the scientist said.  “It’s not a matter of resources.”

“It’s always a matter of resources,” the Illusive Man replied.  “We’re not losing Shepard.”

“Sir, Shepard is clinically braindead,” the scientist protested.  “After that much trauma, that long with no oxygen… we cannot overcome nature.”

“Operative Lawson disagrees.  She is now in charge of Project Lazarus.”

The Illusive Man spoke with such scorn, such condescension, and Shepard watched the argument over his broken body play out with a knot in his stomach.

“I didn’t realize it was that bad,” he finally said, nearly shuddering beneath his armor.

Kaidan took a step forward, and Shepard glanced over his shoulder at him.  “I thought you were just on life support,” he said.  “Clinically braindead?”

Shepard turned back toward the console, unable to look Kaidan in the eye.  “Looks like.”

Kaidan finally took a few steps back, granting Shepard the space he needed, but he stammered through his next thought without having the luxury of time to properly frame it.  “What was it like – I mean, if you remember, or… how do you feel?”

_“Shepard.”_

There were billows of smoke behind him and the orange glow of residual embers reflecting off the tiniest scratches in the metal console before him.  Shepard stared endlessly forward, watching the screen scroll through equally endless lines of data, as though the story of his death and forced return to life was but another bullet point in Cerberus’ long list of cruel experiments.

_I hope this thing burns along with everything else on this goddamn station._

“I’m still me,” he said, short and stern.  “I doubt I’d have been able to turn against Cerberus otherwise.”  But then he faltered.  “I don’t remember anything.  Maybe they really just fixed me, or maybe I’m just a high-tech VI that thinks it’s Commander Shepard.  But I don’t know, I…”

And Kaidan replied simply, “You’re real enough for me.”

Everything Shepard faced was real.  The war was real.  What he fought for and lived for was real.  What he would die for was real.

So was the sound of his kinetic barrier breaking during the firefight that erupted in the next corridor.  So was the sharp staccato of gunfire over his head and around every corner.  So was the adrenaline in his veins and the erratic pulse in his trigger finger and the heavy breaths forced out by the weight of his armor.

So was the man buried beneath all of those involuntary reflexes.

_“Does this unit have a soul?”_

The central lab was sickeningly reminiscent of Sanctuary: dried blood splatters littering the walls and every surface of the experimentation tables, screens displaying data and graphs as though the lives transformed into monstrous mockeries of their former selves could be whittled down to arithmetic, charred surfaces and smoke and fire making the air too thick to breathe.  He stopped, shifting unsteadily on his feet as he waited for EDI to bypass the security lock – as he waited for the single path to again open up.

He had no choice.  He had to move forward.  He had to press on past the death and destruction that followed his every move.

Hackett’s voice jarred his step, asking for a status update on the incursion team’s location within the station.  But Shepard hated to hear it.  He hated to know that the Fifth Fleet was holding back on the chance to end this, to end the atrocious sights, the deafening sounds, the stench of burnt flesh in the air—

“Just take Cerberus down… please.”

Feeling the geth dreadnought violently shake under a barrage of gunfire had been pure dread.  But here, he pleaded for this chance: to end Cerberus once and for all, to watch the station collapse around him, to feel the place shake under his boots, to know that he was doing the right thing.

_“Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”_

The three of them dropped down through another breached bulkhead and landed at the end of a hall that opened up into a massive hangar.  Support columns and scaffolding and wires and catwalks zigzagged across the room in confused lines, and in the center was the remains of the Human-Reaper – the _heart_ as specified by EDI – rigged to the rest of the structures as some sort of power source.

The remains of that fight, that memory, stared back at him in stark reality as yet another threat to the galaxy posed by the Illusive Man’s ambition.  No cost was too high.  No risk was too great.  And Shepard glowered at it from the lower catwalk, jaw clenched and brow furrowed.

_I didn’t choose to destroy that fucking base so you could undo everything I managed to do right._

A ragged voice filtered out from behind him.  “I wished I could’ve helped.”

Shepard looked over his shoulder and winced when he saw the regret on Kaidan’s face.

“You’re here now.”

_We’re here now.  But—_

But the thought faded within the chaos of the next fight: gunfire from every direction, assault troopers lining the catwalks before him and snipers taking aim from platforms below him, sounds of shattering barriers and exploding shield pylons, heavy footfalls against metal grating.  Between every shot and every gun leveled at him was the sound of a silent whisper.

_“Shepard.”_

And when they reached the peak of the ramp, the final door at the end of the only path forward, Shepard heard nothing at all.  The door opened to the Illusive Man’s inner sanctum.  The dying star loomed in the background, a myriad of fiery reds and oranges, burning with the same intensity as the exploding Cerberus fighters and Alliance ships that darted about the space surrounding it.  The floor reflected the faintest hint of stars, and it looked like the galaxy never ended, as though the reds and oranges and darkest shades of black were the last things he would ever see.

Beneath his feet was the hologram communicator, the platform from which his image had so often conversed with the Illusive Man before, reluctantly taking orders that masqueraded as suggestions – not that he had taken them silently.  But still, he had stood there in some form or another, working with the same organization that now stood against everything he knew was right.

Even with Kaidan at his back, watching him walk away and take the Illusive Man’s chair to begin sifting through the data, Shepard hated it. He hated that Kaidan had to find him after death only to see him bearing Cerberus colors, he hated that Kaidan could see every emotion on his face while he sorted through every cruel experiment and every line of data, he hated that Kaidan had to stand here now in the middle of a station that was collapsing around them all.

“Shepard.”

He should have known that the Illusive Man himself would interrupt that search for the prothean VI.  He drew his pistol and leveled it at the Illusive Man’s holographic form, only to stow it again once he heard the telltale signs of the incoming spiel about controlling the Reapers.

_Cerberus is finished.  Give up.  Do the right thing.  It’s that easy.  It’s that fucking easy._

But arguing with the Illusive Man was pointless.  It had always been pointless.  He had been lost long before this war began.

The extent of his depravity – and his indoctrination – was worse than Shepard had feared.  With the prothean VI activated, Shepard felt his hope sink further and further into the fire burning in the pit of his stomach.  The Catalyst was the Citadel itself.  The Illusive Man knew this.  And he had fled to the Citadel and informed the Reapers of the Crucible’s intended use, prompting them to move the station to the heart of their controlled space.

_Earth._

The sharp pang of fear was real.  The sheer anger at seeing Kai Leng appear in time to intrude upon their attempt to contact Hackett was real.  The catharsis brought about by breaking Kai Leng’s shields and landing shots was real.  The surge of frustration when he smashed the assassin’s blade to pieces was real.

_“Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness.  Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand—”_

A prayer for Shepard’s salvation, a wish which Thane had never been able to finish under his own power before he succumbed to his wounds and his illness.  It was all Shepard could hear, a broken promise replaying over and over in his head as he drew his omni-blade and stabbed Kai Leng in the gut, piercing through the black armor and twisting his forearm with pure malice.

“That was for Thane, you son of a bitch.”

Shepard tugged his arm back on a harsh motion and watched the red streaks form tiny rivulets down Kai Leng’s chin as he slumped forward.

The blood was real.  The red streams that trailed down Shepard’s gauntlet and to the floor were real.  The crimson puddle soon interrupted by the limp body that collapsed and died in the middle of it was real.

So was the silence of the shuttle.  So was the look in Kaidan’s eyes that he could not quite manage to avoid by staring at a distant bulkhead.  So was the nauseating tension in his stomach when he closed his eyes and saw nothing but death.  So was the gauntleted hand that settled upon his shoulder plate with an audible clink.

_Is it wrong to need him after everyone else needed me?_

The darkness was real.  His failures and fears were real.  The whispers that haunted him in nightmares and pursued him in consciousness were real.

So was his love for Kaidan.  So was his every thought and every word and every feeling.  So were his heart and soul and every other piece of humanity that had been buried beneath the stoic façade for far too long.

After the mission, after all the anger and frustration fell heavily upon his shoulders the same as they had when he witnessed the horrors of Sanctuary, Shepard went to Kaidan.  When the horizon was in its darkest hours, he turned to Kaidan and found the light: a hand pulling him into an embrace, a smile meeting his eyes, a heartbeat thrumming in time with his own.

But he shivered when Kaidan held him a little tighter, hands at his back, head resting against his, breath wafting about his ear on a single word – a whisper, an impossibly soft tone that lifted him from the depths of his nightmare and brought him into the very real warmth of Kaidan’s arms.

“John.”


	25. Promise

There was a time in his life when Shepard knew everything with absolute certainty: he knew his mission came first, he knew his goals were worth every sacrifice, he knew that every choice he made was the right one.  He committed to his every word and action with fierce conviction and stoic control.  He found fulfilment in the adrenaline that coursed through a hand clenched around the handle of a gun and a finger on the trigger.  He accepted his role as the man the Alliance wanted him to be and the legend the galaxy needed him to be.

But every uncertainty, every break in his plan, every unknown that threatened to wrench control from his grasp tore Commander Shepard apart and left only John Shepard, alone, stumbling through his efforts to pick up the pieces of his own weakness. And he inevitably regretted it in the moments of waiting, in the unbearably long stretch of restless silence between missions.

Now the only certainty was the return to Earth and the promise of countless deaths.

 _Now_ was all he had left.

Once the _Normandy_ had made the mass relay jump from the Horsehead Nebula to the Exodus Cluster, silence settled over the ship on the unspoken order to return to Earth.  It was only a matter of time before the _Normandy_ reached the next mass relay that would take her directly to the Sol System, to the rendezvous point where Hackett would board the ship and detail the plan for the final battle.  But until then, uncertainty would hang in the air like a fog, thick and unforgiving.

Even if it meant living these last moments in the same uncertainty he had always hated, and even if it meant forcing himself to stop and wait for Joker’s hail, Shepard preferred not to know the ETA to the Exodus Cluster’s mass relay.  He was tired of counting down what time he had left.

_If this is all I have left of my life, I want to spend it right here._

Right here, lying on his bed with Kaidan in his arms, Shepard could be still in the midst of all the chaos that waited for him.  Kaidan slept in some semblance of peace, and Shepard wondered if he had lied about the intensity of the headache that had slowly set in sometime after their return from Cronos Station.  Despite Kaidan’s insistence that the headache was minor, he had asked Shepard if he could lie on the bed and ‘rest his eyes.’

But he had never asked Shepard to stay.  He had known that their final moments aboard the _Normandy_ should have been spent conversing with the rest of the crew or reviewing data or solidifying plans.  Yet, almost as if in defiance of the very idea, Shepard had settled in beside him and held on, and there had been nothing but the sound of softening breaths until Kaidan fell asleep in his arms.

And now, with Kaidan held against him – Kaidan’s sweat-dampened hair under his jaw and Kaidan’s flushed skin against his neck and Kaidan’s heavy arms draped over his sides – the time he had left had become too much time to think.

Shepard remembered when it had been him in that position, head tucked under Kaidan’s chin, nose pressed against his neck, arms wrapped around his waist, sleeping off the effects of too much alcohol and the pain of sore muscles and the guilt of losing so much.  He held Kaidan a little tighter, hands fanning out over the padding of his uniform at his shoulder blades.

Every image – soft lips caressing on tentative motions, hands sprawling out over warm skin, hard muscles writhing against one another – lingered in the back of his mind.  Every touch of overstimulated flesh and rigid scar tissue, every taste of sweat and alcohol-tinged breath, every sound of whispered words and breathless gasps.  Every genuine smile, every hushed laugh, every warm embrace—

All so easily recalled as he lay there, holding Kaidan close and trying so desperately not to think of the unknown reality that waited outside the cabin door.  Here, with the swell of his heart, he knew he had meaning and purpose.  Here, with Kaidan in his arms, he finally _knew_ he had done the right thing.

And he would safeguard it with every fiber of his being.  He would never surrender it.  He would carry it with him to his final moments.  He would willingly take it upon his shoulders if it meant knowing with absolute certainty that he could still love the man like he always should have.

_If only everything else made this much sense._

He had gone to the Cerberus base with a tiny flicker of hope, and he had returned with sore muscles and aching joints and a mind drowning in whispered voices, in lies and truth.  Only in Kaidan’s embrace and eyes and heart did he find the willpower to pick up the pieces that had scattered around his feet.  Now, with hope stretching thin and words failing him, there was nothing to do but wait – in harsh silence, in stark reality, in unspoken fear – and he could feel the tension in his gut, the sharp pain of not knowing whether or not he could keep the promise he made to the one man in the galaxy who had given him any hope in return.

He had to end this once and for all, even if it killed him.  But Kaidan—

_All I want is for you to…_

Shepard slipped out of that warm hold and watched Kaidan drift onto the sheet and the pillow, still asleep, still at peace. And Shepard left him lying there, alone.

_I just want you to keep dreaming, Kaidan._

He straightened his uniform and headed for the entry without a word.  When the door closed behind him, he drew up the display on his omni-tool to open a voice-only link, only speaking once the module indicated that the connection had been established.

“Garrus, I’m coming down to the Crew Deck,” he said as he headed for the lift.  “I want to talk to you.”

When a strange shuffling noise filtered out from the display, Shepard cocked an eyebrow as he stared down at his omni-tool.

“Can it wait for a bit?” Garrus finally answered.  “I’m a little busy.”

Shepard shook his head, as though Garrus could have actually seen him from the other end.  “I appreciate wanting the guns in top shape before we head to Earth,” he said, stepping into the lift and leaning against the wall, “but you can put off the calibrations for a few minutes.”

With only the sound of the lift door closing before him and only the sight of the orange glow of his omni-tool reflecting off the metal surface, Shepard stared at the other end of the elevator and waited until he heard the simple reply.

“Uh, yeah.”

That was all he needed.  He selected the module designated for the Crew Deck and said, “On my way.”

Garrus let out a sound that was lost between a reluctant mutter and a sigh.  “Okay, then…”

Shepard powered off his omni-tool and watched the flickering lights on the control console, folding his arms as he waited for the lift to descend to the Crew Deck, and he took a step forward when he noticed from the corner of his eye that the door began to slide open.  He stopped mid-step when he caught sight of Tali, her arm halfway suspended in the air as though reaching for the control console on the outside of the elevator door.

“O-Oh,” she stammered, her arm slowly lowering to her side.  “Shepard.”

“Tali.”

She looked away, glancing down one passageway and then the other, and finally turned her head back toward him.  “I just wanted to check in on everyone,” she said.  “Good to see you up and about.”

“And not staring at a datapad?”

“Yes.”  Her hands began to twist over one another, a nervous habit that she had long carried with her.  “I’m, uh… glad to see you.  Here, I mean – with us.  Not holed up in your cabin.  Not alone.”

“Yeah.  Excuse me.”

“Sure.”

She stood back and waited for Shepard to step off the lift, then proceeded past him into the small, confined space.  Shepard turned on his heel to find her still looking back at him, hands clasped together, no inclination to reach for the elevator controls, and he imagined that there was a weak smile buried beneath the obscuring shine of her visor.

“See you soon, Shepard,” she said.

All he could offer her in return was an unconvincing smile.  “You too.”

He watched the elevator door close before him.  The Crew Deck was largely quiet, with only a few muffled voices filtering out from around the bulkhead that separated the lift corridor from the mess, but it was the same as everywhere else on the ship: all small talk, hushed words designed to be either distracting or comforting in their concerted efforts to retain life in the midst of so much uncertainty.

Shepard made his way around the bulkhead and headed for the mess, where a pair of crewmen looked up and gave obligatory salutes, and then they fell silent, as though they had been caught expressing fears that they should have never shown or spoken.  He looked away, avoiding every crewman’s gaze after that, focusing only on reaching the main battery.

When the sectional door slid open, he found Garrus leaning against the console and awkwardly looking back at him.  Somehow that normally stoic expression, all thick plating and sharp angles, failed to hide his embarrassment.

Shepard waited for the door to close behind him and then leaned against the bulkhead off to one side, one foot placed ahead of the other, arms folded, and a teasing eyebrow cocked in the turian’s direction.

“So… Tali.”

Garrus turned his head away on a stifled laugh.  “It worked out well enough,” he said.

“I had no idea,” Shepard replied.  “I’m happy for you.”

Garrus shrugged his shoulders and said, “It helps to have something to come back to when this is all over.”

“Yeah,” Shepard said, head tilting down slightly, weighed down by a heavy thought.  “That sounds about right.”

Garrus turned back to face him.  “Don’t tell me you’re having doubts.”

Shepard sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides as he pushed himself away from the metal wall.  “I won’t lie, Garrus,” he said, voice low and rough.  “I’m not feeling one hundred percent.  The closer we get to Earth, well…”

Shepard trailed off into a silence that he had no intention of breaking, but Garrus knew where the thought had intended to go before it had collapsed on itself.

“Understandable.  Good thing a certain turian friend of yours is here to tip the scale in your favor.”

Shepard chuckled under his breath.  “Heh, yeah.  Still need to work out some details with Hackett once we reach the Sol System, but I want you on my team.”

“Just lead the way, and I’ll be right behind you.”

“I know.”

The last remnants of Shepard’s smile died with those words.  He let his gaze fall to the floor and his brow sink into a furrow, an expression of remorse that Garrus had seen stain his face far too many times, but he looked up when Garrus broke the silence.

“So, Shepard, I have a pretty good idea of who else you want to take with you.”

Shepard flinched when he heard that.  _Guess I’m still that easy to read, huh._

“Yeah,” he said.  “We’re going home.  Hopefully whatever’s left of it will be worth all of this… this—”

“This hell,” Garrus finished for him.

“Yeah.”  He swallowed hard, mentally trudging through some thought he would never share, and ultimately all he could add was a simple, “Exactly.”

“Kaidan’s a soldier, too, you know,” Garrus said.  “We all know what we signed up for, Shepard.  Going after rogue Spectres and launching suicide missions… all part of the job.  Hasn’t managed to get us killed yet.  Can’t imagine why it would start now.”

Shepard grimaced.  “Not all of us made it through the other end, Garrus.”

Garrus’ brow plate quirked.  “Well, you’re right about that,” he said.  “So the Reapers have given us some hell over the past few years.  It’s about time we paid it back in full.”

“Yeah.”

“And just so you know, I’d be honored to help take Earth back.  We’ll give the Reapers everything they deserve for Palaven and Earth.”

“Thanks, Garrus.  Really.”

“We’re all with you, Shepard, but you need to come up for air once in a while, too.”

“I know,” he said, glancing away toward the console behind his friend.

He bit his lip in the hesitation that followed and finally opened his mouth to speak, but his words caught on a hitched breath and sank back into his throat in surrender.  But Garrus’ expectant look could not be so easily avoided, so he tried again.

“I guess I just…”

“You’re still worried about Kaidan.”

“I am.”

“So you really have done it, finally.”

“Done what?”

“Told yourself the truth.”

“Yeah.”  Shepard again folded his arms and leaned against the wall.  “I did.”

“Good,” Garrus replied, giving a simple nod of approval.  “Kaidan deserves that much.”

Shepard tipped his head back against the wall, the cold metal of the bulkhead sending a jolt down his spine at the sudden contact.  “That he does,” he said, closing his eyes to the knowing glance he feared.  “More than that.  More than what I’ve done to him.”

Garrus’ mandibles extended slightly, not that Shepard would let himself see it.  “You sure you want to take him to Earth?” he asked.  “It could be pretty ugly down there.”

Shepard finally opened his eyes.  “He’d never forgive me if I didn’t,” he said, gaze falling to the deck, just as it had so many times before.  “This is our last fight… our last stand.  I knew this moment was coming, but now that it’s here, I guess I don’t really know what to think.”

He hesitated, eyes fruitlessly scouring the deck for something to focus on, something stable and grounding to steady his feet.

“I don’t know how all of this will end,” he finally said.  “It’s… it’s horrible, Garrus.  Fucking terrifying.  And I don’t want him to see that.  Not now.  Not when we’re so close to ending this once and for all.  Not after everything we’ve already been through.”

“The better question is whether or not he _needs_ to see it,” Garrus retorted, waving a hand in some dismissive gesture.  “I’m sure he’s just as worried about you, Shepard.”

“It’s ridiculous, though, isn’t it?  I should be leading the charge.  No reservations, no fears, no doubts.  If I start questioning my decisions now, how am I gonna’ save the galaxy, right?”

“Come on, Shepard.  I know you better than that.  And something tells me Kaidan knows you better than that, too.”

“Yeah,” Shepard said, a weak laugh underscoring the word, as though it might have been enough to shield him from the truth of that statement.  “He’s always been perceptive… and stubborn, at that.”

“I can think of a few choice words, too,” Garrus said.

Shepard smiled, only a faint upturn at one corner of his mouth, but genuine just the same.  “Maybe it’d be better if you kept those to yourself.”

“Will do.”  Garrus tilted his head, eying Shepard from a new angle, studying the lines on his face as that hint of a smile loitered on his cheeks.  “I have to say, though… that integrity of his can be annoying at times, but Kaidan’s a good choice,” he said.  “Good soldier, good friend.  Good man.”

Shepard picked his gaze up from the floor, slowly, steadily, and on a wistful breath of a sentence, all he said was, “The best.”

Then his smile faded completely.

“Listen, Garrus.  There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you.”

Garrus watched him, but Shepard gave nothing away.  “All right,” he finally said, waiting.

“Promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll make sure Kaidan gets out of this alive.”

“Shepard—”

“Promise me.”

Garrus fell quiet.  Shepard had the same furrowed brow and deep frown that he wore when he issued orders, but something else, something Garrus could not quite pin down, was embedded in the sharp new lines that stretched over his face in that stern expression.  This was so much more than an order.  It was a plea, or a prayer, or…

“Yeah,” Garrus said, mandibles involuntarily twitching.  “Okay, Shepard.”

“Thanks,” he said, turning on his heel to head for the door.  “That’s all I ask.”

Garrus’ voice followed him.  “Shepard…”

Shepard glanced back over his shoulder, but he kept walking.  “See you topside, Garrus,” he said, and then his sentence faded under the pneumatic hiss of the door closing behind him.

The elevator ride back up to his cabin was short and silent.

When the door opened, he headed for the short staircase that led to the lower level, only to hesitate mid-step, one foot planted on the lower deck and one left on the next stair.  Kaidan was seated at the foot of the bed with his boots planted on the deck in that same hesitation, and he looked up to find Shepard gazing back at him through guilty eyes.

He had left Kaidan behind. But this time, Kaidan smiled at him, having always known that he would come back.

“You left without waking me,” he said.

Shepard told him the truth.  “Didn’t have the heart.”

“Well, thanks, but next time, wake me.”

_Next time… yeah.  Next time, I will._

Shepard approached the bed and stood there, cautiously scrubbing a hand over his scalp, needing to occupy himself somehow.

“You doing okay?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” Kaidan answered with a shrug.  “Headache’s settled down.”

“Good to hear.”

“What about you?”

Shepard finally sat at the edge of the bed, letting his knee hit Kaidan’s and the padding of his uniform brush against his at the shoulder.  “Doing as well as I can be,” he said.

“You must have a lot on your mind right now.”

“Seems like that’s pretty standard.”

Kaidan grinned, but it was weak.  “I get that.  Happens to me, too.  Still haven’t decided if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Me neither.  It’s just— no, it’s nothing.  Never mind.”

“Talk to me, John.”

Shepard let out a hollow chuckle.  “You know, it used to be _me_ trying to get _you_ to open up and talk.”

“Yeah, so it’s about time I returned the favor.”

“Kaidan…”

Shepard’s eyes were fixed on him, dulled from their usual brilliant blue.  Kaidan sighed and leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs, hands clasping together between his spread knees, and finally turned his head to meet Shepard’s gaze from that angle.

“Listen, I know it’s been hard lately,” he said, fingers twisting in their shared loose hold.  “Actually, it’s been more than hard. It’s been hell, you know?”

Shepard cringed.  _I know, Kaidan._

“Heading back to Earth now… it must seem like— I don’t know.”  Kaidan sat up and raked a hand through his sleep-mussed hair to draw a few stray locks from his forehead.  “But we’re ready.  Prepared is the best we can do, and we’re more than prepared.  You’ve put all the pieces together.  You’ve done so much more than anyone else could’ve.  You’ve been at the forefront of this thing all this time, and you’ve given us all a chance.”

_It’s a chance to end this war – to make everything right.  It’s the only chance we’ve got now.  But is it enough?_

“Yeah.”

Kaidan turned his head slightly.  “That all you want to say?”

Shepard shrugged his shoulders.  “Thinking about it doesn’t do much good anymore, right?” he said, glancing off to the side, avoiding Kaidan’s concerned gaze, if only for that split-second.  “Just have to get it done, one way or another.”

But Kaidan was not so easily convinced.  “What’s really bothering you?”

And then Shepard looked him directly in the eye.

“I want you with me on this mission, Kaidan.”

“Of course.  But I—”

“And I want you to know now… I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything I’ve said and done.  For everything I never said or did.  For everything.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.  It’s not okay.  Times have changed.  There’s no going back.  There’s nothing I can do, and that—”

“Stop. John, stop.”  Kaidan grabbed Shepard’s knee, and the words collapsed on themselves.  “Yeah, it hasn’t been easy.  There’s been a lot of hard times, a lot of mistakes.  But we’re here now, right?”

Shepard’s eyes fell to the deck.  “I just…”

He was so tired of counting down what time he had left – but time haunted him like so many other uncertainties.  It had never left him.  It never would.

“Is this all we get, Kaidan?”

His eyes widened.  “No,” he said, firm and steady.  “God, no.  You’ll find a way.  I know you will.  And when it’s all over, I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I just wish we had more time.”

His voice was broken, a patchwork tone of longing and regret and guilt, a tone that Kaidan had never wanted to hear from him ever again.

“Look at me.”

Shepard turned his head toward him, expression willingly blank, eyes unwillingly dull, and said, “I am.”

“I need you to know something, too.”

“Tell me.”

“The time we’ve had together lately has been… well, it’s been intense.  It feels like a lifetime.  It means everything to me.  It was all worth it, John.  All of it.”

He could see the fear embedded in Shepard’s eyes, the remorse for all his words and actions that he had claimed _right_ in the past, and he could not deny it, either.  He lowered his gaze a little, steadying himself as he told Shepard the truth – not one he likely wanted to hear, but one he deserved to know.

“I’m scared, John.  I’ll admit that.  It’s, uh… it’s not easy to talk about, I know.  I think about what’s at stake and I— well, I can’t stand it.  I can handle not knowing what’s coming up next because at least I know I’ll be there with you.  But still, I… I can’t stand the thought of losing you.  Maybe that’s selfish.  I don’t know.  I— yeah, it _is_ selfish.  But it’s true.”

And yet, Kaidan smiled through the pain, the tired creases on his face subtly contorting with every determined effort to hold down the words caught in his throat and the air boiling in his lungs, and Shepard felt a twinge in the pit of his stomach, a pang of regret that he had not felt in such a long time.  Shepard sat still in silence, and yet it was like walking in his own funeral procession, like watching his casket be carried upon the shoulders of those he left behind.

Even now, he could see himself weighing so heavily upon Kaidan’s shoulders.

_I don’t know if I can keep my promise, Kaidan…_

He swallowed hard, words dry and shaky when he finally forced them out.

“Kaidan, I don’t…”

They faded into a harsh silence, burning in hollow of his throat, festering, threatening to choke him if he freed them from what little restraint he had left.  And still Kaidan smiled, weak, fragile, honest and rueful and strained.

“It’s okay,” Kaidan said, and he took Shepard’s hand.

Their fingers meshed, their pulses matched, smooth and subtle strokes of skin on gentle, reassuring motions.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kaidan added.  “We got here together, and we’ll finish this together.”

Shepard watched the subtlest reflections of the aquarium’s light flicker in Kaidan’s eyes and over the lines on his face.

There were so many things he wanted to say, a dozen thoughts rattling about in his head, a muddled mess that spilled out on a few quivering gasps, and it was impossible to know the right thing to say, now or ever. It was impossible to know what words could possibly break the silence with the comfort and sincerity and honesty and hope that they both needed.

_If I break my promise, will you forgive me?_

He cupped Kaidan’s jaw in his hands, thumbs brushing along his cheeks and resting at the graying hair at his temples.  He closed his eyes and pressed their foreheads together, noses touching, breaths wafting about their necks on shuddering gasps and fractured words.  He finally opened his mouth and found his voice teetering on the brink of a sob.

“Kaidan, I love you.”

Words too soft to be more than a whispered prayer, a blind grasp at hope in whatever time they had left.  Words too simple to convey the depth of all he felt for this man, all that he lived for now reflected back at him through the softness of Kaidan’s breaths and the warmth of his skin and the strength of his hands.  But still—

“I love you, too.”

Kaidan kissed him, just once, and it said far too much.


	26. Live

Time stood still in the ruined streets of London.  Big Ben was frozen at 9:56.  The ash and dust and soot never settled to the ground; it all lingered in the air as perpetually dark clouds.  In the standstill between firefights, the noise of gunfire and Reaper beams and distant explosions faded into the background of the unfinished picture before him.  But it all seemed so artificial, as though the moment of quiet in the FOB was a fragment of some trick his mind was playing on itself.

Somewhere deep down, Shepard knew that his final moments with his squad were best spent in this rare silence, during which he could give them that last encouraging pep talk or reassuring pat on the back or grateful handshake.  When he walked away from it all, he tried to convince himself that he had never actually said any farewells.  But he also knew better than to think that he had said much more than that.

He had the entire galaxy at his back.  He had painstakingly built every alliance and gathered every armada.  He had every resource at his disposal.  He had friends and colleagues of every species fighting alongside him on the ground.  But, standing on the opposite side of an abandoned street from Kaidan, watching him stare at the ground with a hand held up to the communicator in his ear, Shepard was distinctly alone.

He considered walking away and leaving Kaidan by himself during this rare moment of calm.  He tried to rationalize it, which was easy enough: it would give Kaidan more time to find his students, it would avoid adding another burden onto Kaidan’s shoulders, it would keep both of them from wasting valuable time.

It would ensure that neither one of them had to say goodbye.

But he closed the distance anyway.  He would accept whatever consequences awaited him for this decision.

“Hey, Kaidan.”

Kaidan turned around to face him, the momentary surprise on his face soon disintegrating into a weak smile. “Hey, there you are.”

Shepard had no idea what to say.  _Yeah… I’m here._

“You ready?” he finally asked.

“Absolutely,” Kaidan replied, his voice lighter but somehow still strained.  “For anything.  Bring it on.”

“And Biotics Division?  Your students?”

Kaidan managed a soft chuckle, but the inflection was unrecognizable.  “More than ready – eager.  That’s youth for you.”  He tilted his head slightly, watching Shepard watch him, each one of them scrutinizing the other for cracks in the surface of that shared façade.  “Guess we’re old soldiers, eh, John?”

“Yeah,” Shepard said, “I guess we are.”

“Brothers in arms,” Kaidan began, a trace of that forced smile still lingering on his lips.  “We know the score.”

He fell into a long pause, and the smile dissipated into the cold air.

“We know this is goodbye.”

His voice cracked under its own weight, throat constricting under the strain of repressing the tears that welled in his eyes against his will.  And Shepard winced through the twinge in his gut, a dull ache that burned on a forgotten ember and threatened to make him vomit.

_God, no… don’t lose hope now, Kaidan.  Not now._

There was a time in his life when Shepard accepted his inevitable death – as a means of salvation from his endless nightmares, as a time during which he could finally let himself rest, as a sacrifice that might be the cornerstone of a better future for the galaxy that had weighed upon his shoulders for so long.  But he no longer knew everything with absolute certainty, not even Kaidan’s fate, and it was utterly terrifying.

Shepard was ready to tell him that he would be waiting for him after this was all over, just as Kaidan had told him so many times before, but he stopped the thought before it could have ever left his lips.  He could not make that promise; telling him that would have been a lie, no matter how well-intentioned.

So all he said was, “Yeah… we know the score.”

“And I’m not afraid to die,” Kaidan replied, and Shepard flinched.

He wanted to be at Shepard’s side for his final moments, wherever they were and however long they were.  But he knew Shepard would vehemently protest that statement – most likely in silence – so he swallowed hard and added, “But, listen.”  And then he hesitated, drawing in a breath that did little to calm his nerves but which at least gave him a moment to finish his thought.  “There’s things I want to say.  Looking back, I have a few regrets, but not many.  That’s pretty damn amazing, right?  Messed up kid that I was… never would’ve dreamed of the life I’ve had.  And I owe a lot of that to you, you know?”

He had lived his life with the integrity that the galaxy had fought so hard to crush.  He had no delusions about his life or the war or anything else.  After watching from the confines of an escape pod as Shepard suffocated in the darkness, after mourning his commander and friend and all the words left unsaid, after recovering enough of his sanity to maintain his composure and principles on Horizon, after taking the hit of rejection in stride like the old soldier he was, after everything… he was still human, strong despite his flaws, shaped by both instinct and circumstance and all the better man for it.

He had made his decisions in life.  His story was what it was.  But he wanted to believe that history would tell of so much more – of his and Shepard’s time together and everything that it meant – and that one day, they could both look back on all of it as some distant memory.

Only after a moment of uncomfortable silence did Shepard reply.  “It’s been quite a ride,” he said, but he never looked back at Kaidan.  He stared off into the distance at the rubble and ruin that wounded him in an entirely different way.

“It sure has,” Kaidan agreed.  He turned his head back to face Shepard, whose eyes finally met his on a pained wince, and asked, “But how are you doing?  Scared?”

Shepard’s hesitation gave him away.  The blind confidence he put on display for everyone else had always been sufficient to keep the questions and concerns to a minimum, but Kaidan had always seen through the guise.

Their last chance at defeating the Reapers lay in the Crucible, a weapon in which the Alliance had invested its last resources and all remaining hope, a device whose true function still remained unknown.  Humanity’s home world lay in ruins all around them, the sky perpetually overcast with dark clouds, the ground littered with just as much cracked concrete and shattered glass and crushed rebar as it was with dead bodies and broken souls and lost hope.

But what scared Shepard was the expression that had stained Kaidan’s face when he asked that question.

“Damn straight, I’m scared,” he finally said, willing some semblance of conviction into the tone of his voice.  He knew that lying would do nothing at this point.  “But that fear’s going to keep me alive long enough to strike these bastards right through the heart.”

“Yeah.”  Kaidan tilted his head down even as the corners of his mouth quirked up slightly, just enough to feign another smile.  “Exactly.”

Shepard could barely stand to look at him: the longing look in his eyes, the silent wish that peeked out from the tiniest upturn of his lips, the flicker of hope that he somehow still carried with him.

_I should go._

“Take care, Major,” was all he could muster.

It would have to do.

He took a step and turned his head away, but Kaidan caught him by the forearm and brought a hand to his cheek, the cold metal stinging his warm flesh on a motion somehow far too gentle for the harsh reality that lurked in the rubble all around them.  Kaidan leaned in toward him, slowly, cautiously, and when their lips met, Shepard finally closed his eyes and kissed him back on long, earnest strokes.  Kaidan kept Shepard’s hand on his hip, holding it in place, forcing him to stand still if only for this single moment in time, and Shepard kissed him harder.  Here, now, they were alive and in love, and it was all either one of them needed to know.

Kaidan pulled away, opened his eyes, and swallowed hard.  “Stay safe.”

Shepard remained silent, attempting to feel nothing as he took a step back.  He knew he could not make that promise, either, and all he could hope for now was that the guilt which accompanied that thought did not show on his face.  Kaidan turned his head away, his breath hitching when he harshly swallowed some of the thick air that festered in the space between them.

“Well, I should find the rest of my squad,” he said, his voice slowly sinking into the ruin that lay all around them.

Kaidan gave him a way out, and Shepard seized the opportunity with a firm grasp.

“Yeah.”  It was all he could say as he took his first steps away from Kaidan, the man he loved and the man whose voice wafted all around him, even now.

“You know, I’ve never been to London.”

Shepard walked a little faster, kept his eyes downcast toward the dirt and rubble, and pretended not to hear it.

Time resumed when he reviewed plans with Anderson and made his last speech and took to fighting through the streets.  Time was cruelly uncertain and callously loud.  Every time he ducked behind a collapsed pillar or slab of concrete and found Garrus agitatedly reloading his sniper rifle, he heard an explosion in the distance.  Every time he peered around a corner and found himself drawing back into cover to avoid a sudden hail of enemy gunfire, he heard an Alliance soldier’s death cry echoing off the walls of dilapidated buildings.  Every time he glanced over his shoulder and found Kaidan’s eyes flicking toward him in return, he heard his own voice resonating within his head on a promise that was slowly breaking apart.

_I’ll never leave you behind again._

Time pressed mercilessly on as he fought shoulder-to-shoulder with his team.  With the Reaper destroyer taken out and the Alliance convoy heading for the beam, Shepard let himself sink into the jump seat, his hand clutching the nearby strut a little too tightly, his eyes closing a little too quickly, and his hope for another rare moment of calm was soon shattered when the vehicle violently jolted around him.

Outside, the rain beat down upon all of them – cold, stinging, harsh.  The beam loomed in the background of some waking nightmare, a bright pillar of light piercing through the darkness, and it made the London landscape appear more alien than any of the far-off worlds that Shepard had seen throughout his years spent darting about space.  Earth lay in shambles and Harbinger itself presided over the destruction that waited for all of them.

“We gotta’ move!” Anderson shouted, and Shepard knew that this was it.

Time had run out.

There was nowhere to go but forward.  Bodies collapsed all around him.  Fighters in the air and tanks on the ground exploded under the fire of Reaper beams.  But he never stopped running.  The conduit beam before him was his only goal now, where he would end this once and for all or die trying – until his attention was forcibly drawn to the tank that flipped in midair over his head.

He skidded to a halt underneath it and turned to look over his shoulder, just in time to find Kaidan and Garrus leaping in opposite directions to avoid the tank. They collapsed to the ground, sprawling out over the dirt and crawling away from the wreckage with only their adrenaline guiding them.  Shepard bounded over the overturned tank to find Garrus frantically waving him off.  He was not the one who had been injured.

Shepard found Kaidan struggling a short distance away, straining to look up at him as he attempted to get himself back on his feet and back in the fight, but Shepard grabbed his arm and hauled him to the nearest relatively safe place he could find.  He eased Kaidan against the hull of the overturned tank, and when he finally let himself truly look at him, his heart plunged into his stomach.

Kaidan’s armor had been split at the shin by shrapnel from the exploding tank.  His leg quivered uncontrollably beneath his armor, and it was impossible to know how much blood he had lost; it streamed over his armor and stained the ground just like that of so many other soldiers – fallen soldiers, men and women who died on their home world under the fire of an enemy they could never match.  Shepard’s hand clenched into a fist at his side as he watched the puddle expand beneath Kaidan’s outstretched leg with every beat of the man’s heart.

At that moment, he made his decision.

Shepard drew a hand to his communicator and called for an evac, and Kaidan felt himself shiver beneath his armor.  He could do nothing but sit and wait and watch: as Shepard frantically looked around the battlefield for signs of the _Normandy_ , as Shepard glanced back at his injured leg and into his eyes and tried so valiantly to prevent the anguish from showing on his face, as Shepard slid a hand into his and clenched it as tightly as he could bear.

But Kaidan knew what was happening.

When Shepard’s eyes flicked toward the _Normandy_ as it finally descended to ground level, Kaidan knew.

When Shepard slung his arm over his shoulder to help steady him as they headed for the opening shuttle bay door, Kaidan knew.

And when Shepard stopped midway up the ramp and told Garrus to _take him_ , Kaidan knew.

Kaidan knew what it meant to leave someone behind.  He had fought it tooth and nail in a struggle to breathe within the fire and smoke that claimed the _Normandy SR-1_.  He had watched Shepard fall into the blackness of space with only the harsh, fiery reds and oranges of a soundless explosion behind him, bringing light in the most cynical way, drawing him down, draining his air, overwhelming his vision until there was nothing – Shepard was gone, lost to the silence and the darkness.  And Kaidan had fought it afterward, choking down too-strong drinks and letting himself go blind to a galaxy that was completely empty without Shepard in it.

Being ushered into the open hangar door of the _Normandy’s_ shuttle bay brought all those memories back.  His hand shook as it left Shepard’s and was cast over Garrus’ shoulder for support.  He stumbled in his step to turn around and face Shepard, only to find him stoic, bearing the sort of determination that he always did before issuing an order. 

But it was not enough to fool him.  The crack in Shepard’s voice, the break in that passive expression when he told him to _get out of here_ , the acceptance of a grim fate that he refused to share—

Shepard was leaving him behind, and Kaidan was watching him fall all over again.

Kaidan shivered and struggled and cried out with all he could muster.

“Damn it, no!”

He tried to push himself free of Garrus’ hold, an attempt rewarded only with a tug at his arm and a muffled grunt of annoyance in his ear.  Putting weight on his injured leg only made his voice all the more pained.

“Don’t do this!  I’m with you until the end!  You know that!  Don’t… don’t leave me!  Don’t leave me behind!  You promised me, you—”

“I’m doing this for the right reason,” Shepard interjected, his voice burning like bile in his throat.  He saw the agony on Kaidan’s face.  He heard the fear in Kaidan’s voice.  But he knew what he was doing was right.  “It’s the only reason.  It’s the only thing that matters.”

Kaidan writhed at Garrus’ side, nearly collapsing to his knees in the attempt to free himself from the turian’s firm hold and follow Shepard to the depths of hell. But Garrus held fast and reined him back in, drawing him up to his feet and grasping his arm tighter as they both watched Shepard take a few steps backward down the ramp.  Garrus nearly choked when he saw the look in Shepard’s eye: some small gesture of thanks that at least one of them was going to keep his promise.

So Garrus held tighter, one clawed hand clenching around Kaidan’s armor at the wrist and another at the man’s side, pulling him back even as he continued to fight against the only thing holding him upright.  And Kaidan was on the verge of losing whatever semblance of control he had left: his low cries of protest were reduced to pleading whimpers, and his hand twitched at Garrus’ shoulder, lost in a numb haze of involuntary nerve impulses.

He stopped fighting it only on a brief moment of pause when pain shot up his injured leg and he cried out through clenched teeth, but it was just long enough to truly see into Shepard’s eyes, to truly see that determination in the set of his jaw and the furrow of his brow, to truly know that there was no way for him to win this silent argument.  But some unknowable feeling settled into the pit of his stomach, and his eyes welled with tears.  He stood on the edge of collapse and finally opened his mouth.

“Don’t… please… you promised me, John.”  His words wilted and withered until they were nothing more than breaths that slipped through slightly parted lips.  “Don’t do this… don’t leave me behind…”

The world went silent around him until Shepard could hear nothing else, nothing but that plea over and over again, nothing but the soft, broken words that pierced through the cacophony of death.

_I don’t know if I’ll live through this.  And I won’t let you suffer on the hope that I’ll be fine.  I’m breaking my promise again, I know… but, god damn it all, if I do nothing else here and now, it will be watching you go – watching you leave this hell with your life intact._

He wanted nothing more than to reach for Kaidan.  To touch him one last time, even if it had to be broken by the cold metal of his gauntlet.  To kiss him one last time, even if it had to be a painful reminder that time had run out.  To hold him and breathe him in and love him like he should have done so many times before.

But he stood where he was.  He had already made his decision.

_No matter what happens, know that I love you… always._

The words lingered on the tip of his tongue, but he could not say them, not with Kaidan gazing back at him through those pleading eyes, too shiny with unshed tears, too pained with unspoken fear.  Shepard knew what would happen.  There was no need for the preface.  So he swallowed hard and made his final words to Kaidan as simple as they could be.

“I love you.”

It burned in his throat and it wrenched his heart and it sounded too close to _goodbye_ , but he would have made the same decision every time if it meant that Kaidan knew it for certain.  He backed away further before Kaidan could reach for him, but even with a galaxy’s worth of empty space between them, there was no doubt that they had made it to the end together, somehow still alive and in love.

For once, Shepard knew he should stay.  But leveling his gaze with the man standing at the other end of the unfathomable distance between them made it difficult not to think that he should go.

Kaidan, with the long streaks of blood on his armor.  Kaidan, with the limp in his stumbling attempts to follow Shepard into the abyss.  Kaidan, with the lines on his face contorting in pain and frustration every time Garrus pulled him back.  Kaidan, with the galaxy reflected in his eyes – the devastation that Shepard first saw on the Citadel, on a day that seemed so far away now.

Kaidan’s voice was suddenly just as far away, cracking and splitting under a sob, begging Shepard to close the distance that he had once again drawn between them.

“I love you, too…”

For a split-second, Shepard hesitated.  His voice caught in his throat, a silent fear that he might regret this in his final moments, burning at the bottom of his lungs beneath the soot and ash and rain. But he forced it out on an order, lips pulling back to bare teeth, tone rough and raw and refusing to back down.

“ _Go_!”

And then he turned on his heel and ran, never looking back, never seeing the tears that finally fell from Kaidan’s eyes and trailed down his bloodstained cheeks.  The cacophony returned to the air around him, explosions and Reaper beams and bodies collapsing and death cries, and through it all, he heard his name chasing after him on an anguished call.  But he kept running until it faded into the dissonance of the battlefield, until it was just another noise for him to will into silence as he sprinted toward the end.

_If this is the last thing I ever do, if this is the last time I ever see your face – I’m… no.  I’m not.  Maybe, with time, you’ll forgive me.  But I’m not sorry, Kaidan.  I’m not sorry that I’m breaking my promise.  I’m not sorry that I’m doing this to you.  I’m not sorry that this is the last time you’ll ever see me… because you’re going to live through this._

His armor was too heavy and his chest was too tight and his hands were permanently clenched into fists.  The ground shook beneath his feet and his path grew haphazard as he staggered his steps around explosions and gunfire.  But he was still going – still moving forward with that stark determination.

_You’re going to live._

He looked up when a ship appeared in his peripheral vision, the sleek metal hull reflecting the beam’s light against the blackness of space that surrounded it.  The thrusters engaged and the _Normandy_ darted off into the night sky, and then he was alone.

_Go, Kaidan.  Live your life.  Don’t wait for me.  You’ve done enough waiting._

He had said his goodbyes to his team.  He had made his peace with both the silence and the whispers.  And, at some point – maybe he would never know exactly when – _someone to live for_ had become _someone worth dying for_.  He was not afraid of death.  He was not afraid of the Reapers.  He was only afraid of seeing Kaidan as he had been after the mission on Mars: still, silent, and dying before his eyes.

For Kaidan, he would end this once and for all.  For Kaidan, he would take the weight of the galaxy onto his shoulders.  For Kaidan, he would wander into the light never knowing if he would come out the other end.  For Kaidan, he would die alone one more time.  And, watching the _Normandy_ shrink into the distance, into the dark regions of space between the stars, away from the fear and death and destruction, Shepard knew—

_I made the right decision._

An exploding tank sent him stumbling in the opposite direction, where he hit the ground with hands sprawled out over the dirt and legs scrambling to regain what purchase they needed to get him back on his feet.  His breathing was ragged, his muscles were sore, his eyes were stinging, but he pushed himself up and stood still, just once more, before the piercing red light of a Reaper beam carved through the dark night and blotted out his vision.

In the light that surrounded him, there was a steady hand reaching out for him, a warm smile piercing through the abyss, and the sound of a rhythmic heartbeat thrumming in time with his own.

In the darkness that followed, there was nothing but a fading pulse and a beautiful dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Sort of.  
> If you’re looking for a tastefully tragic ending (yeah, right…), then this is your stop. Otherwise, stick around for a little bit longer. :)


	27. Dream

_“Beautiful view.”_

The sound of waves ebbing and flowing and the distant calls of seagulls, the cool and gentle breeze that brought with it the scent of salt and the taste of fresh air, the afternoon sun’s light reflecting off every tiny ripple in the water on a warm day.  There was life all around him, and he breathed it all in until his lungs were full and his heart was finally beating at the steady rate it had never achieved under the stress of war and the burden of duty.

Standing on a pier overlooking the sea, hands placed on an old wooden railing, eyes fixed forward on the endless stretch of water, shoulder brushing against that of the man standing at his side, Shepard had found peace.  One hand fell to his side and caught Kaidan’s, entwining their fingers, holding on to the moment as tightly as he could bear.

_Yeah… it is._

Space had always felt more like home than Earth: the metallic interior of a ship’s hull, the scattered flicker of starlight, the vast blackness of space itself – each one a sign of humanity’s triumph over the stars and its will to explore, to colonize, to survive.  He had only seen Earth’s seas in old vids, foreign and exotic and undoubtedly romanticized, but standing there, looking out over the light reflecting off the water, listening to the sounds of waves, feeling the cool breeze and the warmth of another’s hand in his own, it almost felt real.

_Kaidan._

He closed his eyes for only a moment, and it began to slip away. 

_No – please… just let me stay here.  Just let me be with him._

The light slowly faded, the warmth in his hand dissipated, the sounds drowned under a fog of white noise, and soon the dream was gone, replaced by a sudden flash of crimson, fire and smoke and overwhelming heat, dragging him under into a suffocating silence.  He was sinking into the abyss, weighed down and constricted as though plunging into deep water, but just as light and airy as though floating through space, weightless, falling both up and down until there was nothing but darkness.

A murky haze swirled about in his head like a tide, only settling into place on a slow descent, a fall into himself.  There was a vague sense of light beyond his eyelids, but he could not open them.  There was a tingling sensation creeping over some long nerve in his arm, but he could not move it.  His throat was dry and he could not swallow or do much more than breathe, but it was difficult, some unknowable weight compressing his chest and forcing every breath to be shallow and silent.

His senses began to return to him, agonizingly slow and hazy, as though he were trudging through the gray fog he had dreamed of too many times before.  He missed the light, the sea, the warmth of Kaidan’s hand and the look in his eyes and the sound of his voice—

“—old you to never ask me that again.”

_Kaidan…?_

He could hear a couple sets of footfalls fading the slightest bit, as though retreating a few steps back, and soon another voice filtered into his ear, feminine and unrecognizable.

“Major Alenko, he hasn’t made any improvement in months.”

Another set of steps across the floor, something like pacing back and forth.

“I don’t care.”  Kaidan’s voice was sharper, harsher.  “As long as his heart’s beating, I’m waiting.”

“Major…”

“He saved the whole damn galaxy.  He saved you.  He saved me.”

“We just don’t want you to keep your hopes up too high when he might never—”

“Get out.”

The sounds of fading footsteps and a door closing with a little more vehemence than it should have then filled the room, resonating off the walls until there was a stark quiet, unsettled, tension still palpable in the air.  Kaidan heaved a sigh, and soon the sounds of his boots hitting the floor drew closer, surprisingly steady and stable in the midst of all that silent noise.

Kaidan brought a hand to his temple.  He stood a few feet from Shepard’s bed and just looked at him.

His cheeks were hollowed out, angular, and bony.  His lips were dry and chapped and parted slightly.  His neck and shoulders were littered with new scars.  His eyes were forever closed to the world around him. 

His arms and hands were buried beneath layers of beige bandages, dressings that were perpetually bloody at scattered spots by wounds that refused to heal.  Every small gap in the wrapping revealed a line of sutures that would form yet another scar, another mark left on the man who had endured hell itself to save the galaxy.

Surgeons had painstakingly removed the armor that had melded to his skin, carved out the necrotic tissue buried beneath, set what broken bones they could and implanted titanium reinforcements in the ones damaged beyond repair, and performed as many skin grafts and organ transplants as they could find donors for – not that there was a shortage after the war.  Doctors had repeatedly put his body through induced comas and brought it back, only to find it unresponsive and unconscious but somehow still alive.  And Kaidan had waited through all of it, sitting at Shepard’s bedside whenever he was allowed, watching the man fade away before his eyes with every additional surgery and every set of fresh bandages that clung to his slowly diminishing frame.

Now, Shepard was a motionless body, recognizably human but not much more than that.  He was slender, weak, fragile – words that Kaidan had never dared imagine would become fitting descriptors for the same man whose stern expressions and firm words and imposing physique had always made him such a commanding presence both in the boardroom and on the battlefield.  He was a shadow of his former self, a body that barely managed to breathe unassisted, a body that lay stagnant for months, restrained by the same bandages and stitches and tubes that held it together.

But Kaidan knew it was still John Shepard buried in there somewhere.

He took the chair at Shepard’s bedside and said, “Hey, John.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasping together in the middle, shoulders slumping as he let his gaze fall to the man who had lain still for far too long.  It was a scene he had grown quite accustomed to in the months since the end of the war, but even now, he felt the faintest pang in his chest when Shepard failed to respond.

Every day, he sat at Shepard’s bedside and greeted him.  Every day, he forced a smile when his words were returned with only silence.  But, every day, he left the room knowing that there would always be the next day.

He let his eyes wander to the window at the other end of the room, where the glass was littered with raindrops and longer streaks.  It had rained every day for the past few weeks.  The sky was perpetually overcast with gray clouds that scattered rain all across London, washing away the last remnants of ash and soot from the air and the ground, cleansing the city of the dregs of war.

Sitting in a room in a salvaged hospital on the fringe of the city, staying at Shepard’s bedside just as he had been for months, Kaidan somehow found the small flicker of hope he thought he had lost that day.  The sound of rain pattering against the window, the persistent smell of blood and antiseptic, the steady beeping of the cardiac monitor – it was the beautiful cacophony of life.

“I keep reminding myself that this is home,” he said, turning his eyes back toward Shepard’s face.  “Hm, ‘home.’  It still sounds strange somehow.  Feels like forever since the last time I was actually here on Earth – before the war, I mean.  Yeah, didn’t look like much of a home back then.  But that’s all changing now.  Earth is being rebuilt.  It’s becoming home again… slowly, maybe, but still.”

Shepard could do little more than lie still, despite how his mind raced and his heart struggled to keep pace with it, despite how his fingers desperately tried and failed to respond to the nerve impulses that traveled down his arms and fell apart on fractured muscle spasms, despite how his eyes darted about the darkness in a fumbling attempt to find their way to the light.

_Kaidan—_

Kaidan bit his lip, attempting to ignore the slight increase in tempo from the heart rate monitor on the other side of Shepard’s bed.  The rare, hopeful little upticks in the machine’s normal intervallic string of beeps usually ended with a flatline and a wave of doctors and nurses storming through the doorway.  So Kaidan waited, watching the monitor from the corner of his eye, only releasing a long sigh of relief when the staccato slowed in surrender.

“I wish I would’ve been there when they found you,” he said.  “I’m sorry that I wasn’t.  Hell, I don’t even know where we were.  Some far-off planet I’d never seen before.  I mean, it was beautiful, it really was.  But I don’t even know how long we were there.  EDI went offline and never came back.  Not sure what happened.”

Shepard’s breath hitched.  _EDI… I’m sorry._

“Took us a long time to get the _Normandy_ back into spaceworthy condition without her,” Kaidan continued, voice a little lower.  “Long enough that we, uh… we had a memorial service.  Added a few names to the wall.  We lost a lot of good people, John.  Too many.”

Shepard’s temples were throbbing, every beat of his heart sending a pulse through his unresponsive body to his overactive brain.  _I know, Kaidan._

“And…”  The word bled into a heavy sigh.  “I couldn’t do it.”

Kaidan shifted in his chair, his hands clasping together more tightly, holding on to a memory that was painful, burning in the back of his mind and in the palms of his hands… a memory which he refused to let go.

“Everyone was standing there, waiting for me to add the nameplate to the wall – _your_ name.  But I couldn’t do it.  I… I-I just couldn’t.  I mean, I had been ready to go, ready to die if I had to.  And you… well, you left me behind, and I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t leave you behind.  I couldn’t lose you.  Not again.  So I didn’t.  Maybe it was— I don’t know, maybe it seemed like I’d be admitting I lost you for good.  You probably think that sounds stupid, and maybe it does.  I… yeah, it does.  Sorry, I guess I’m still trying to figure it out for myself.”

Shepard felt like he winced, but he would never know whether the residual nerve impulses managed to make that curl of his lip and furrow of his brow a reality.

_Damn it, Kaidan… you weren’t supposed to wait for me.  You were always so fucking stubborn._

“Garrus was the only one who said anything to me afterward,” Kaidan said.  “Back then, I couldn’t even look at him.  I didn’t want to.  But he pulled me aside and said that you did what you thought was right.  But you’ve always done that, John.  I knew that.  I still know that.  Didn’t make it any easier.  I don’t know what you said to him, but don’t do it again.  The look on his face when he said you did the right thing… that was awful.”

Then he suddenly let out a chuckle – fractured, short, aimless.

“Who knew turians could be that, uh… expressive?”

Shepard felt his gut tense as he listened to the muddled inflection of Kaidan’s voice, that odd tone which always lined his words whenever he attempted to bury his pain under a forced laugh: his voice always cracked somewhere in the middle of his sentence, and his weak chuckle always gave way to a defeatist smile.  Shepard had always hated to see it.

And Kaidan let the broken smile linger on his lips a little longer.  It was not like Shepard could see it.

“I accidentally crashed his date with Tali one time,” he said.  “Not sure if you knew about it.  I guess it never worked out for them after all.  We all just sort of went our different ways and… yeah.  A little too reminiscent of the first time you died.

“Shit – I didn’t mean it like that.  You know what I mean.  At least, I hope you do.

“You surprised the hell out of all of us, you know.  Once we finally got back to the Sol System and our comm channels were working again, we got word that you were alive.  We all took that news a little differently, I think. 

“Garrus, I don’t know… he got called away to Palaven and he said he’d meet up with you later, but so far, nothing.  He must be busy; Palaven was hit pretty much the same time Earth was.  James enlisted in the ICT program now that it’s back up and running – can you believe that?  He said he wanted to honor his promise.  Maybe you know what he was talking about, because I sure as hell didn’t.

“Joker took it pretty hard.  He had to just leave you there and then the _Normandy_ was grounded and then he just seemed so… lost.”

Shepard felt the pang in the pit of his stomach settle into a dull, constant ache that even the steady dosage of painkillers failed to suppress.  _I destroyed what mattered most to him._

“I came here with Tali and Liara,” Kaidan added, leaning back in the chair as he looked away.  “Liara didn’t stay long.  She left without much of a word to anybody, and once I saw you, I knew why.  You were in some kind of isolation chamber, like a big acrylic case or something.  Tali said it reminded her of quarian enviro-suits, and then she, uh… she started crying.  She’s back on Rannoch now.  Last I heard from her, the quarians have been trying to settle, but progress is slow.  I guess the geth are all gone.  No one really knows what happened.”

Shepard could hear the shudder in the string of low beeps from the cardiac monitor.  _Legion.  I was supposed to save all those lives._

When Kaidan looked back at him, he swore he could see a wrinkle of frustration in the set of Shepard’s brow, but he had seen too many involuntary reflexes and muscle spasms to let himself think that the tiny movement had been much more than that.  Every tiny twitch had given him hope, and every subsequent descent into silence and stillness had made him wonder whether his hope was misplaced, if only for a split-second.

He had learned secondhand that Shepard had stood at his bedside at Huerta Memorial Hospital shortly after the mission on Mars.  The doctor had said when he regained consciousness that Shepard had told him to fight, that he needed him – and Kaidan had lain there, staring back at the doctor in disbelief, mulling over every suspicious glance and harsh word on Mars, hoping that he would get the chance to say everything he should have said before.

Shepard had known that Kaidan was a fighter and that he would pull through.  Kaidan knew that Shepard was a fighter, too.  He always had been.  He would pull through; Kaidan had to believe that.

He again leaned forward in the chair and said, “And I’ve been here ever since.  I’ve been waiting for you… not always patiently, I’ll admit.  But being here, being on Earth as it’s becoming home again, just— it’s all still here.  It’s all here because of you.”

The galaxy was still in the midst of its own recovery.  Progress was slow, agonizingly so sometimes, but in the haze of uncertainty that hung over every world, there was life and hope for a shared future.  Whatever Shepard had faced on Earth that day, he had united an entire galaxy against the greatest threat it had ever known.  Whatever Shepard had decided to do, he had destroyed the Reapers.  Whatever Shepard had seen in his final moments – or, what he may have thought were his final moments – he still had the chance to see the galaxy that he had saved.

“Biotics Division taught me something,” Kaidan began after a long hesitation.  “There’s a lot of people out there looking for answers.  Some of them want to find it in space or… somewhere.  I think I saw myself in those kids.  They just wanted to do some good with the cards life dealt them, you know?  Maybe I saw you, too.  You always had a weight on your shoulders.  You always knew you were doing the right thing, even if it meant… well…”

Kaidan trailed off into a mumble that ultimately faded into silence.  Shepard felt a throbbing pain shoot up his arm on a nerve that was finally starting to respond to his frantic demands to move it – to reach for Kaidan, finally – but he stopped where he was when Kaidan opened his mouth again.

“Nothing made sense after the _Normandy_ left Earth,” he said, his tone suddenly so lost, his voice suddenly so weak.  “I wonder if you remember what happened that day.”

_The beam.  Human remains everywhere.  The Illusive Man.  Anderson.  God damn it… Anderson.  I shot him, and then he… said he was proud of me.  And then the Crucible and the choice and the whole fucking galaxy and—_

He had destroyed so much already, even before the war: lives, cities, worlds.  On that day, on a distant memory still as clear as though it had happened minutes ago, he had destroyed so much more.  And now the galaxy was paying the price for his decision while he lay there, broken but somehow alive.

The war with the Reapers had been one of attrition, slowly wearing him down until his very core was exposed, every frustration and weakness put on display to the only man who he had ever let see them, and Kaidan had slowly built him back up – and Kaidan was still doing it.  Despite every harsh word he had ever levied at him, despite every frustration he had ever taken out on him, despite fighting himself every step of the way and dragging him down into the thick of it, despite leaving him behind on a broken promise, Kaidan was there.

_Anderson said he was proud of me… but I’ve done so many things I’m not proud of, Kaidan._

Kaidan glanced over Shepard’s face.  Somehow, the blank expression he had become accustomed to over the past months was different, lips pinched at the corners and brow furrowed the slightest bit, no longer content in the peaceful darkness.  He leaned further forward, folding his arms on the bed’s guardrails, closing the distance as best he could.

“But listen, John.  There’s still so much I want— _need_ to say.

“I’ve had a lot of time to just sit here and think.  Too much time, actually.  I was pissed, John.  Hell, more than that.  I hated it.  You left me behind.  You made me a promise that you couldn’t keep.  Maybe I’ll never know if you intended to keep it, but… you know, it doesn’t matter now.  I— yeah, I just… I’ve thought about it for such a long time now.

“That mission back on Eden Prime, all those years ago?  It changed my life.  And Virmire and Horizon and Mars… so many decisions that nobody should’ve had to make.  The tough calls, the impossible choices.  I mean, we’ve been through so much together already.  I guess I just need to say thank you for everything.  Even after… well, _everything_ – thank you.

“So I think I owe you the truth.  The day I got back to London and finally saw you, I didn’t recognize you.  And I… I was disgusted with myself for it.  You were buried under all those bandages and tubes and stitches and… shit, I don’t know.  I want to say that I wish I’d never seen you like that, but I can’t.  I’d be lying if I said that.

“But I’ve thought a lot about this, too.  When I saw your scars on Horizon, they were pretty horrifying.  Sorry, I’m not proud of myself for thinking that.  But, seeing your scars now, they’re beautiful.  They mean that you’re here.  You’re alive.  You made it.

“You saved my life that day, and I hated it.  But I just kept hoping.  I kept thinking that, well… you saved the entire galaxy, but if you didn’t live to see it, then the cost was too high.  But you’re alive.  Now you just have to open your eyes so you can see all of it, John.”

Shepard was still fighting – to wake up, to move, to see the galaxy, to see _him_.

_Kaidan…_

And Kaidan kept talking.

“It’s funny.  Every day, I sit here until they throw me out and just tell you the same stories over and over.  I probably end up repeating myself a lot… sorry about that.  I guess I just have a lot to say, and a lot of things I wish I would’ve told you before.

“That time before we came to Earth, when I fell asleep in your arms with that migraine – yeah, I’m sorry that I lied… it was more than a mild headache – I had a dream.  I dreamed that we were standing on a pier over English Bay, just… standing still.  Enjoying life.  Beautiful view.  I wish I would’ve told you about it at the time.  You probably would’ve laughed at how ridiculous it was.  But if it had gotten you to smile, I would’ve been fine with that.”

Shepard’s eyes burned behind the lids, tears prickling at the corners, too hot and overwhelming like fire.

_Kaidan—_

“But I don’t have to make wishes anymore… because I’m going to be here when you wake up.  And I’ll probably say something stupid when you do.  Probably a lame one-liner or maybe just ‘hey’ or something.  And you know what?  That’s okay.  It’s going to be okay.  We have so much time now.”

Kaidan’s hand wrapped around his, palm resting on top and trembling fingers curling underneath, the faintest warmth in that gentle hold seeping through the bandages and sparking deadened nerves back to life.

“I’m here, John.  I’ll always be here.”

_Kaidan…  Oh, god, Kaidan…_

A single tear trailed down Shepard’s cheek.

Kaidan’s heart leapt into his throat.  “John…?”

Finally, he could wrap his fingers around Kaidan’s hand.  The weak grip was all he could muster, and he hoped it was enough; and then Kaidan squeezed his hand in response, meshing their fingers together, holding as tightly as he could bear.

Shepard nearly choked on his own breath, the sharp sting of a broken sob catching in his throat – relief, hope, purpose, a reason to keep fighting.  He opened his mouth, nearly cringing at the cracking sound in his jaw, and fought to free the name that had lingered in the back of his mind and on the tip of his tongue for so long.

“Kaid—”

His voice cracked and wavered, a rough syllable that seared his throat on the way up and then collapsed on itself.  His eyes finally opened on a reluctant flutter, too much artificial light flooding into pupils that had become accustomed to the darkness.  But when the light faded and sharp lines began to take shape from the blurry haze of washed-out colors, Kaidan was there.

Kaidan was there for him.  Kaidan had always been there for him.

“J-John,” he stammered, the name leaving his quivering lips on a hitched breath, the word so heavy in all that it meant now that he could finally see the man’s blue eyes gazing back at him again.

He wanted to tell Shepard everything, so much more than he had ever said before.  But watching Shepard struggle to move, seeing his face contort with pain and frustration and his breaths slip between clenched teeth, Kaidan restrained every word and every embrace and every kiss that he wanted so desperately to give him.  Despite the tears welling in his eyes, Kaidan knew better.

“Hey, don’t push yourself,” Kaidan said, giving another squeeze of his hand, gentler and yet insistent.  “Take it easy and—”

“N-No.”  The word was scratchy and uneven like gravel.  “Need to… tell you.”

He settled into the sheet and pillow, every aching bone and every protesting muscle finally relaxing, but his hand gripped Kaidan’s a little tighter, feeling the steady pulse shared between their fingers.  He closed his eyes and relived his last nightmare.

“Waited for it.”  His voice was raw and painful, but he was determined to power through it, to tell Kaidan everything.  “Wanted it all to… to end.  Was… ready to let go.  Ready to— to die, to be at… peace.”

He had sat there at Anderson’s side and watched the man die before his eyes, and he was prepared to do the same.  He had clung to the edge of death, ready to let himself fall into a restful peace, ready to let the weight of the galaxy finally crush his shoulders and watch him bleed out if it meant he would meet the darkness at the other end – no pain, no war, nothing but a dream of the future he would never see.

And then the Crucible had failed to fire, and he dragged himself forward in a haze, vision blurry and muscles weak and bones aching and lungs pooling with blood, and woke to a nightmare: one last decision, one last choice that defied every perception of right and wrong, one last fight before he could let himself slip away into the galaxy’s collective memory.

He opened his eyes.  “Saw so many… faces.  Yours.  Saw you.  Knew I was doing… the right thing.  Had to… make sure you— you lived, free to… make your own choice.  Had to end it.  All of it.”

Sacrifice.  There had never been victory without it.  And, when he had stood there at the threshold of life and death, it had been the only thing left for him.

It had been such an easy decision.

He had watched himself collapse under the burning heat of the explosion.  He had fallen into darkness as the galaxy was engulfed in fire, in the consequences of his choice.  He had let himself fade into a dream and into the hope that it would never end.

“Just wanted… wanted to rest.  So tired.  So fucking tired.”  His voice cracked under the sob that welled at the bottom of his lungs.  “Until— your voice.  You.  Worth fighting for… someone to live for.”

He had drifted through a dream for months, watching the sea flicker and shine under the afternoon sun, holding Kaidan’s hand and listening to his comforting words.  There, he had never been forced to make impossible decisions or weigh limited options or dictate his life according to mission reports.  However artificial it was, there had been peace in the light on the other side of all the destruction and chaos.

It would have been so easy to stay there, to know that he had died for what was right.  But he had left too much behind – so much worth fighting for.

So much to live for.

“K-Kaidan.”

“I’m here, John,” he said once more – and he would say it as many times as Shepard needed to hear.

He gripped Shepard’s hand a little tighter, tears finally falling from his eyes when he saw the faintest of smiles trace its way over Shepard’s lips.  There was so much more to say – every update on the present, every regret of the past, every promise for the future – but they had forever to get there, together.

“I’m here,” Kaidan said. “ _We’re_ here.”

Shepard closed his eyes.

No need to hope for a dream.

The warmth in the palm of his hand was finally real again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! If you made it all the way here, thank you for reading! <3  
>   
> I had planned for a long time to end this fic with the previous chapter, since I didn’t want to box it in to one ending vs. another. Everybody has a personal preference on what the “right” choice is at the end. But I wasn’t quite done after all… and I was worried that some (read: most) of y’all wouldn’t like having the end be the previous chapter. So here we are in epilogue territory! I wanted it to be happier but still fairly open-ended, so I apologize if it’s not very conclusive.  
>   
> This fic was several firsts for me. I had a lot of doubts along the way, and I questioned the decisions I made for this fic (ain’t that ironic). But I managed to be happy with it overall, which is quite the feat for me personally. And now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with myself, haha! :)  
>   
> Also, I’m trying to get back into drawing after many years of _not_ drawing, so… I added something for this fic! (Incidentally, using Paint to clean up the scan was just... awful... 1/10, do not recommend.)  
>   
>  I finally made a [Tumblr](http://arkesstuff.tumblr.com/)! And I have no idea what I’m doing. Come hang out while I figure out how to use it, haha. I’m secretly a nice person! Not much to see there right now, but y’all should stop on by anyway. :)  
>   
> I want to say thank you all so much for the wonderful support through all of this. I greatly appreciate every kudos and comment. And I hope that you enjoyed. :D


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